From America with Love
by last letter
Summary: Dear Russia, you suck.
1. Chapter 1

_This story:_

is not about letters. Or at least, not really.

What it is about is two countries, both of them with respective issues that they may want to go either emotional counseling or a psychiatrist to sort out. It is about politics and trust and flowers and scarves and being annoying and being stubborn and impossible love and aliens that don't make a lot of sense at all. It is about a game without relationships and possibly a relationship without games. It is about pasts that can't quite be let go of, not just yet. It is about a large amount of foolishness.

Well, maybe it is, anyway! //

* * *

from russia, with love

* * *

_Dear America, _

_I was very impressed with your presentation at the last meeting, most notably the state of your dress – your collar buttons undid themselves very attractively halfway through, of which I surmise you were unaware - and the occurrence of when you bent down to retrieve your writing instrument. I felt it would be a shame to leave such a display without praise, thus I have written you this letter. Excuse the conciseness, but I am a very busy man without too much time to waste on spellchecking idiotic American-English text. Also, you have very nice buttocks._

_Fondly, _

_Russia_

_

* * *

_

Alfred stared blankly at the (could it even be called one?) letter in his hands. What the hell was this bullshit. What the hell was he supposed to…

What the hell was this bullshit.

This was completely absurd. Of course, Russia was obviously one creepy shit. That was the general consensus amongst all of the other countries, no question about it. Yet, right now, becoming increasingly bedraggled between his fingers, written in smooth gold ink on some finely embossed, high-quality, fancy-ass, _was that fucking lace on the corners?_, freshly out of the envelope stamped with a broken official seal, was something that had completely thrown him off course. Alfred slid Texas back up the bridge of his nose with an utterly perplexed finger. How was he supposed to react to this? Well, gee whiz, Russia, thanks for the letter, I'm sure glad you enjoyed checking out my ass! He could feel a migraine inching forward, hoping not to be noticed, just from the thought.

Goddamn that Russian and his mind games. Was this a pre-war tactic? Was he trying to weaken him with complete dumbfounded confusion before invading his country and overtaking all of his fast-food chains? Damn it all to hell if he was going to fall prey to this bullshit! Who the hell did that guy think he was?

He was Alfred F. Jones. He was Alfred Fucking Jones, hero of the greatest goddamn country on earth, and he was not going to take part in this hoopla. This was totally chill with him. Here came Russia, acting like he was the big man, trying to start something, but no, because Alfred Fucking Jones had a brain and Alfred Fucking Jones wasn't going to stand for this, he was going to be the better person and use common sense and not be the cause of buckets of shit to start flying every which way in the air.

* * *

_Dear Russia, _

_You suck._

_Not fondly, _

_America_

_

* * *

_

Ivan had been humming to himself. He hadn't even noticed, but Latvia had brought in the tea set and was shaking with so much more magnitude than usual that the pot had practically exploded in spilling all over the dilapidated rug and then, trembling, he asked if Ivan was angry about something. Angry? How silly! He was practically ecstatic with joy. After all, he hadn't even been sure his letter would be spared a single glance by the bumbling mail handlers in that bumbling country across the sea. And yet, not only did dear America receive it without error, but to have written back so quickly…!

This was all so exciting. What should he do next, Ivan wondered? Of course the proper action to take would be to write back, since America had taken such great pains and gone out of his way to reply. Perhaps this was the beginning of a much deeper relationship between them. Perhaps, they could even be

Pen pals!

Oh, even the idea was thrilling!

Hold the phone a second, then, what on earth was he doing idling like this? Dearest America must have been thinking along the same lines as he was, to have written back with such haste. He could even, quite possibly, be sitting at home this very moment, waiting with a sad heart for a return letter from Ivan that he had given up hope would ever arrive! How could Ivan have been so cruel as to not realize this; what a poor (and he had the _gall_ to blush at the words, right now he didn't _deserve_ happiness pondering about what the future could hold) pen pal he was turning out to be!

But oh, what should he write about? Ivan had never had a (blush) pen pal before. But – rudimentary. There were bigger issues at hand, primarily actually beginning a letter to the country and rescuing America from the clutches of despair that must have been settling upon him just that minute!

Besides, messing with the country just sounded really fun.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_How very nice of you to reply with such speed. I must admit that I am more than a little happy to have this chance to be your _(something was scribbled out here in a blotch of ink) _overseas postal correspondent. _

_I hope to be able to share worthwhile and interesting conversations with you in the future, because lately, though I am a little embarrassed to admit it, you have been on my mind. Just two days ago Lithuania made dinner from a renowned British recipe book, and it was so disgusting I could not help but to think of you. No need to worry about my health though; the dish was not as bad as that repulsive slop your countrymen funnel down their digestive tracts every day. _

_Is your vision poor so you have to wear glasses, or are they just for looks? I remember when you were younger you had no need for them. Your eyes were quite pretty._

_Affectionately yours, _

_Russia

* * *

_

Was this guy fucking _serious?_ Maybe if he was in a better mood and had a little more foresight, Alfred would have neglected to reply to this new letter and any future disasters and/or messages could have been averted. But unfortunately, it was impossible for anything that involved Russia to leave him in any mood but graghhhhhhh, and foresight was a gift just beyond his ability.

* * *

_Dear Russia,_

_Are you for real?_

_As far from affection as you can get, _

_America

* * *

_

Ivan was puzzled.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_I am sorry but I just cannot seem to understand what you meant by your last letter. I am not one of England's little fairies or unicorns, however, so as far as I can tell you I am indeed real. I am assuming that your words were merely diseased by the crude and unrefined excrement that is your language, so no harm done._

_Do you like turtles? I have never kept one myself, but my elder sister did when we were young. I cannot recall where she obtained it from, but it froze quite solidly so we gave it to our neighbor China, whom I think may have turned the turtle into a savory soup or something similar. You would look very cute with a turtle. I wonder if you would consider trading in that extra terrestrial acquaintance of yours in for one instead._

_Kisses,_

_Russia

* * *

_

_Dear Russia,_

_ No. _

_Turtles are stupid. _

_You are stupid._

_ Please don't, _

_ America

* * *

_

_Dear America,_

_ It is always refreshing to hear when America has such strong beliefs in things. You are quite renowned for your obnoxious sense of self-importance, after all. I am glad you told me about your opinion on turtles, because I was almost about to make a gift of one to you. I would have been desolate if I had ended up giving you something you disliked, since I want us to be_ (something here had been crossed out extensively) _friends for a long time. _

_ Japan showed me some very interesting photographs the other day. One of a young lady wearing a short blue dress stands out most vividly in my mind. I think the blue would match you perfectly, but your legs are rather mannish and unshapely so you would likely not look very attractive in it._

_ Thinking of you,_

_ Russia

* * *

_

_Dear Russia, _

_ Please stop writing to me._

_ God damn it, _

_ America

* * *

_

_Dear America, _

_ I regret to inform you that your previous reply was dropped into a pool of melted snow by our inept postman. By the time I discovered the letter and brought it inside to dry, the ink had run badly, making your words quite illegible. While it was not a far shot from your usual grease-stained demolition zone penmanship, I am afraid even my most thorough attempts could not decipher it._

Alfred stopped midway through reading to bang his head against the wall.


	2. Chapter 2

from russia, with love

* * *

Alfred was starting to freak out a little.

Eleven. He had received a total of eleven letters so far from a certain Russian individual, each as incomprehensible and pointless as the last. It wasn't the fact that the letters had come – it was the fact that they _kept coming_, and with no end in sight! Perhaps eleven wasn't such a daunting number, but this had been stretching on for goddamn weeks and weeks already so just knowing that that number was going to _grow _Alfred could feel years of his life draining lethargically away.

So yes. He was starting to freak out a little, which basically meant that it was getting increasingly hard to ignore the queasy feeling of foreboding/sure destruction that accompanied each letter, because Russia did not just randomly decide to begin a "friendly overseas postal correspondence" for no reason Oh God something terrible was going to happen what should he do oh no oh no.

He also had no idea why he kept writing back. It wasn't as if it took any great shakes to fill up the maximum of three sentences that his responses were usually comprised of, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be spending that valuable time on higher priority activities, such as eating or watching naked women wash cars on his boss' exclusive channels or something. Alfred supposed that a part of him hoped that, if he proved to be totally uncool to talk with, Russia would just give up and find someone else to bother and thus eradicate any paranoia he was hosting that the entire USA was going to be blown to fucking smithereens at any given moment without warning.

And now it was two in the afternoon, on a Monday, the worst day of the week. Russia's letters usually arrived on Mondays, and it was highly suspect that this was all planned since he was such an asshole. Alfred was already anticipating the deluge of bullshit that this new letter would unleash. Not like it was hard to imagine, since in a nutshell all of his letters were pretty much Dear America your country is dumb and you are dumb and your language is dumb and the Soviet Union is awesome and everyone should be a communist you are dumb I am hitting on you and being totally weird about it you are dumb ha ha ha love Russia yeah woohoo.

Suck.

But yeah, he was totally going insane now because agh Russia was just so agh and it was driving him crazy and god damn that mailman he was four minutes overdue and as much as Alfred was dreading this new letter's arrival he was going to _flip_ _out_ if it was planning on keeping him waiting any longer because he just wanted to get it over with and _someonejusttouchedhisarm_SCREAM.

"…Al, enough," said Canada, who was standing behind him in the middle of the foyer, holding his bear that was sniffing itself. Whoa.

"E-enough of what? How the hell did you get inside my house?"

Canada sighed wearily. "I've been here since this morning, Alfred. You let me in." Well, shit. Really? "…I thought I should stop you before you begin to go bald, you've been tearing your hair out for about ten minutes. It's all over the floor…"

Alfred looked down, taken aback. "Whoa, serious! No, leave it, Tony'll pick it up – he collects it for some reason – he likes eyebrow hair a lot too, whenever Arthur scratches it comes down like a Niagara and he'll be crawling around with tweezers or something, it's kinda gross – oh sweet Jesus the mail is here," and he dove for the door knob. His brother watched, completely bemused, as he opened the door, exchanged gabble with the mailman, and slammed it shut again with envelopes clutched between his fingers.

"Did Russia's letter come?" Whoa again.

"Damn it, yes it did and shit, Matthew, how do you know about that? You were never psychic before!"

Canada shook his head at Kumajiro. "You've been talking about his letters for the past two hours, and complaining about him every time you call me. I don't understand why you don't just ignore him…have you even tried?" Alfred shook his head at Kumajiro even harder.

"Matt, you have no idea what this is! It's a mutual battle, can't you _see_? It's like he keeps trying to beat me into submission and take all my milk money, but I can't just give in and walk away, that's totally lame and unheroic and lame!"

"And maybe if you stop being a fool and cease responding to him entirely, he'll feel completely one-upped and that he's the real fool?"

Alfred exhaled deeply. He was right. Alfred was being kind of irrational. If there had been a lesson to be learned growing up with England and France, it was to drop the issue before it became a pathetic drunken brawl to the death. Better to just quit this whole fiasco cold turkey right then and there. "Yeah. Okay. Good point. This will be the last one," he shoved the twelfth letter into the other's hands, "and it never even came, alright?"

"Alright," agreed Canada, satisfied, but then turned curious eyes to the envelope he was now holding. "Although, could I…?" He began to remove the paper as Alfred shrugged, feigning nonchalance, and patted Kumajiro on the snout.

"'Dear America,'" Canada read aloud, eyebrows raised. "'Greetings! It has been a while, has it not? I apologize for failing to keep up our daily correspondence as per usual, but we are all very busy in preparation for the Winter Festival…' He really lays the vocabulary on thick, eh? What Americans do for the New Year… 'Increase obesity rates and waste precious resources such as electricity by publicizing mechanical balls falling down poles...'"

Alfred rolled his eyes. Right after all that preaching about how he should act like a grade schooler and just pretend the problem wasn't there, in the end Canada was the one who wanted to read it. Well, he'd just try to tune him out. He had, after all, just taken a huge step towards the path of the good and holy by deciding to ignore Russia, and wasn't about to be pulled back in to the dark side. Alfred F. Jones, one cool customer. Oh yeah.

"'…so foolishly endearing. You are…' Why are there so many words crossed out? Etcetera, etcetera…what's this, 'always sopping wet with lard, the disgusting and vile filth you call a hamburg--'" And Canada stopped, eyes already widening with horror at what he had just done as Alfred froze.

Oh fuck no.

_Fuck_ no.

"Matthew." Canada flinched.

"Y-yes!"

"Paper. _Immediately_."

"N-no problem!" he squeaked, quailing beneath the intensity of sheer ohshitness that was beginning to bubble up into the hall like lava. He then turned and ran for dear life, narrowly avoiding Tony, who was heading towards Alfred's feet with a small vacuum, plastic bag and determined gleam in his eye, clearly embarking on a critical mission.

* * *

_Dear Russia, _

_You rude ass icicle sucking son of a bitch._

_God damn it. God damn it. What the fuck do I have to do to get you to quit? I can't stand you. _I can't stand you._ Do you understand? Can you comprehend? I'm using my special red pen. _

_I AM TAKING UP HALF THE PAGE HERE. ARE THESE WORDS BIG ENOUGH TO GET THROUGH YOUR THICK ASS HEAD? You suck. YOU SUCK._

_STOP WRITING TO ME._

_MY GOD._

_I don't know why I go out of my way to read this fat ass bull crap you keep spewing at me. I guess I am just that cool and wonderful and generous and even though it's totally beneath me to be gracing you with the time I take with your sludge, I do it anyway. You should be pretty god damn grateful, and what I should be hearing from you should at least be something like Ohhhhhhh Mr. Hero America you are so cool and wonderful and generous thanks so much for gracing me with the time you take to read my sludge really thanks a lot you are the best I wish I could be more like you!_

_But no. Instead I have to put up with you patronizing me every other god damn sentence. And when you're not being the rude ass icicle sucking son of a bitch that you are, you're just being an _idiot_, writing about absolutely nothing that has to do with me or that I would have even the tiniest smidgen of care about. Do you have nothing better to do with your time? Do you really not? How about instead of picking up your pen to write the next time you feel like being an ass hole, you shove it up yours instead and go outside and make some snow angels or something and freeze your dick off. How about that._

_Go fuck yourself, Russia. Seriously. Fuck you._

_With love, _

_America, bitch._

_P.S. Hamburgers are fucking delicious you have no idea I mean what the hell do you eat all the time fucking borscht or beets or something I don't even know and I'm not going pretend I know jack shit about Russian food because frankly I don't give a damn._

_

* * *

_

"Aha," said one Ivan Braginski to the unfolded paper he had laid with great care on his lap as he sat in the office of his superior, who looked up, alarmed, and quickly looked down again, as an eerie smile quickly began to commandeer his face.

Oh, America. He was so…

He had said "with love". "With love, America." "With love, America, bitch."

How…how cute!

Oh no no, it wouldn't do at all to be blushing like this at work. Control yourself, Ivan! Stay professional! There was a pile of paperwork to be done. No time to be distracted, no time to waste.

But really, that boy was so easily incensed. If he had known that writing about hazardous fast food would procure such a dramatic and lengthy response, he would have done so sooner! Ivan had been beginning to doubt America's worth as a potential (tee hee) pen pal, but all he had needed was a little coaxing. He knew he'd come through, Ivan thought, feeling proud. Of course he had made a good choice.

Glancing again at the stack of neglected papers, Ivan sighed in regret. Sorry, dear America. Just wait a few more hours, and he'd be home and writing back. Just hang on until then!

* * *

_Dear America,_

_You are the most amusing creature! I really am quite fond of you, I must say, I really, truly am. Do not tell this to anyone, but I was re-reading parts of your letter all during desk time at the head office today, and it lifted my spirits quite a bit. I managed to get everything done for my superior much earlier than usual! Of course I came home immediately to be able to write you back. You have my sincerest gratitude._

_I found out something interesting about you! You tend to break up your compound words when feeling passionate. It was very cute to read. I imagined you saying the words out loud, with pauses between each break, which did give me quite a chuckle. Some of the words you used were slightly embarrassing, however. I hope I have not been acting too forward to have given you the wrong impression. I merely do not think we are at the right stage to be using certain terms and phrases like that yet. Do not be offended…just give it time._

_Do you comb your hair every day? I was just wondering, as you always have that small cowlick sticking up at your front that makes you look like an imbecile. Have you ever tried using styling gel to hold it down, or is it not effective?_

_There is much I would like to say to you, but it is getting rather cold and it appears that the inkwell is freezing. I am sure there will be plenty of time to say whatever comes to mind at the next meeting. Are you looking forward to it? I certainly am. See you anon!_

_Meet you soon,_

_Russia_

_

* * *

_

Alfred buried his face in his hands. There was no winning this battle.


	3. Chapter 3

from russia, with love

* * *

It had been a good holiday. The house had been decorated, a tree strung with lights, candles lit by the day, and twenty or so classic seasonal movies that just about every American child has seen at least three dozen times by age ten had either been rented or downloaded illegally. After an easygoing dinner and fireside chat with the President's family on Christmas Eve, Alfred had spent Christmas day cozily at home, destroying gingerbread houses and unfortunate snowmen in the garden with Tony.

The pine needles and broken champagne bottles that had been scattered all over the floor had subsequently been vacuumed up with an expertise only Tony possessed, the holidays were once again over and done with, and now it was time for hell.

Or rather, it was time for another clumsily organized world meeting, this time held in London, during which pretty much close to nothing ever got done, and of which Alfred was currently (and quite unhappily) ascending towards to attend. Why the hell were there so many stairs? Why was the elevator broken? Why didn't they fix it, or at least make a new one for him? This was totally stupid. He was goddamn America, for Christ's sake. He was practically a celebrity. He _was_ a celebrity! Everybody loved America! There should be red carpets and flower petals at his feet, expensive liquor being broken out in fancy glasses. He'd definitely be complaining to the ignorant little English staff people later – not right that moment though, because he was just _so tired _and his muscles were_ burning _and huff pant_ god _he was out of shape okay he was at the top _finally_ thank heavens.

"Nihao, Meiguo," chirped China, followed by, "Excuse please," and Alfred moved out of the way of the door before resuming his previous position, doubled over and gasping with hands clutching the stitch in his side. England walked over, greeted China, and then turned disapprovingly towards him.

"You look such a fool." Alfred scowled at him.

"Up yours," he tried to say, but it came out more like a wheeze.

England sniffed. "Have a little respect for your host country, if you would. It's just a guess, but I'll wager you spent your entire holiday sitting idle and stuffing your face?"

He was shown the finger. "Up yours again, Arthur," Alfred replied breathlessly, and then grinned, sheepish. "But yeah, pretty much. How're you doing, man? It's been a while. Good Christmas? Matt had some insane partying going on at his place, I should've gone." England clapped a hand on his shoulder and led him further into the conference room.

"Fairly decent, actually, considering I was stuck with Francis for company. I was given a salon grooming kit by Finland, which really isn't of much use. I'm sure he knows I get my hair trimmed at the shop, so I haven't any idea what he meant by it…"

"Haha, well, Finland just does some funny things once in a while, I guess!" said Alfred lightheartedly, carefully avoiding eye contact with the upper half of England's face.

"I suppose," England mused. Back by the door, a newly arrived Spain was stepping into the room, beaming at everything in range without a cause as usual. "Here, I've got to go say hello – the meeting is just about to start once the last few arrive, so go on and greet the others there and find a seat. Remember to behave yourself. Oh, and Alfred, let's catch up at my home afterwards, over lunch, what do you say?"

"Hey, sounds good!" Food sounded good to him, at any rate. What a swell guy! England gave him a small smile and a pat on the back before shuffling away like the busybody he was, leaving him there alone.

Alone.

For some reason, that seemed bad. But, why? Alfred racked his brain for a reason. The year-end festivities had completely messed him up. What could he be forgetting?

"Al, hi!" Canada was waving him over from a chair at the conference table. "We're about to start, sit down. I've been here for an hour, but I don't think England saw me at all… You look distracted, by the way. What's wrong?"

"Just trying to remember something, but I don't..."

"Also, and how is the thing with Ru…" Canada trailed off, his gaze sliding off of Alfred and onto something – someone – behind him. "…Russia. Um, hello!"

Oh.

Oh yeah.

Shit.

Time to brace for full impact, Alfred told himself, as he turned around, insult at the ready, and oh whoa damn he'd failed to remember just how _huge_ Russia was. Well, that certainly put a dampener on all the rude greetings he had just come up with to use, but…perseverance was key. He couldn't back down now – so Alfred opened his mouth to tell the guy exactly what he thought of him.

"Uh," he said.

Wow. Smooth. Way to go.

Fuck was he a moron. He glared up at the giant anyway, daring him to contradict his words of finality (or in this case, his awkward noise). But Russia merely smiled, gave a soft "Zdravstvujte", and passed by to draw a chair for himself, leaving Alfred standing there stupidly with his mouth slightly ajar and glare not quite finished.

_Uh_, he thought.

If someone would please tell him what just happened there, that'd be great. Because he had absolutely zero ideas.

What the hell was that. What the hell was _that_. Did Russia just blow him off? What the… he spent _weeks_, _months_ driving him absolutely insane with his dumbassness and dumbass letters, being the epitome of _dumb_, and now he just _ignored_ him and acted like they hadn't communicated at all? Did he really just…really – _really?_ Any inner peace and happiness he had leftover from stocking up during Christmas and New Years' had just detonated in a huge explosion along with his mind, and the jagged debris scattered and bounced around painfully inside of his skull.

"Mr. America, if you're _quite_ finished standing there like an idiot whose brain was recently blown apart, the majority of us here would appreciate it if you'd seat yourself so we may commence the conference." England was giving him a dry look that seemed to be conveying something like _Alfred boy what in the hell are you doing get that arse on the chair immediately!_ Numbly, Alfred did so, with what was left inside his head spinning.

Mind games. These were just more mind games. Russia was an expert at such things, after all. He wasn't going to – fuck, but he'd pretty much fallen for them all already. Geh, that didn't matter. Press on, he commanded himself, hang in there, man! He was going to get through this. Russia was probably expecting him to feel jilted after ignoring him like that. He must want Alfred to be the one to confront him. Yes...yes! It – it all fell into place. He knew Russia's plan now, knew it perfectly. It was certainly, yes, certainly, defined by nine intricate steps, which he could envision clearly:

1 – annoy shit out of Alfred with letters for half of an eternity.

2 – give ominous warning in last letter sent about face-to-face meeting in future.

3 – allow holiday season to pass as final moments of happiness for Alfred.

4 – wait for Alfred's paranoia and wariness reach acceptable levels.

5 – take Alfred by surprise by acting completely casual, causing destruction of sanity.

6 – expect Alfred to be the one to initiate contact, demanding why he ignored him.

7 – Alfred loses.

8 – Russia wins.

9 – hooray for Russia!

God he was such a genius.

Leave it to Russia to come up with such a complexly foolish plan, though. No way would Alfred ever fall for something as uncool as _that_. Well, just wait, Chillyboy! _He'd_ be the one to come to _Alfred_, not the other way around. Just wait and see. This was a game he was not going to lose, no way, impossible. Bring it! America's Awesome Counterplan Activate! Yeah!

Tuning into the discussion for the first time, he was met with the sound of England clearing his throat repeatedly, just barely above the murmur of side conversations being held between practically every country present. It was always like this; even Germany was trapped within the continuous spaghetti noodle of Italy's quiet but incessant chatter, unable to stand and restore order for once.

"All right. _All right_," England said loudly, banging his binder of notes against the table. "Since no one seems particularly disposed to _paying attention_, let's take a break before continuing our _jobs_. Honestly, for the love of…" A quarter-hour recess was called, and the room's volume and level of clattering around promptly increased. Canada got up and left to attempt being noticed by someone.

Alfred stayed seated, staring fixedly at the notes that had been passed around at some point in front of him without reading any of them, and very aware that Russia was up and on the prowl, that massive form hard to mistake even from the corner of his eye. Steady now…yes, Russia was definitely _approaching him_, he knew it, he knew it!

"Kak dela, Amerika – how are you?"

Ha! There it was, he had been right, he'd evaded Russia's plan perfectly and now he was the victor, because Russia had been forced to start a conversation, Russia had lost, _ha_, Russia was talking to him!

…God damn it, Russia was talking to him. The counterplan was a failure.

"Well _hey, _Russia, I was just peachy until you showed up and now that I've seen your ugly face I just feel gross and also someone call a maid I think I suddenly feel the need to throw up pretty bad," he exuberated in as conversational a tone he could muster before screwing his eyes shut and lifting his face towards the heavens. Divine intervention, please! Someone save him from this behemoth's mercy!

No such luck. "I am glad to hear it! And glad to hear _you_, America. You know, it has been such a very long while since I was last able to hear such an incredibly idiotic voice. The experience is rather refreshing." Oh, god. Hulk Russia was wasting no time shooting straight for the asshole championship of the day.

"Yeah, it's been forever since I was bleeding out of my ears listening to that lame accent of yours, thanks a lot for reacquainting me with the feeling." Because he did have an accent; a surprisingly heavy Russian accent that had, for the most part, completely slipped Alfred's mind. He'd gotten used to the flowery language of Russia's letters, and – oh, no, Russia was helping himself to Canada's empty chair. Great.

A fruity little giggle sprang from somewhere within the dark dank bowels of Russia's throat. "Da, well, it cannot be helped, as you know! As adept as I may be at your stupid words (they are terribly easy, you know, no wonder you can manage to handle them) unless a majority of my people learn to speak fluently, I am to remain conversing like this vocally. Is that a new suit of yours? How very becoming."

"Go away."

"Oh, but there is still time before we must reconvene! I would also like to apologize for not greeting you properly earlier, the meeting was just beginning and I did not wish to hold things up, although you seemed to do so yourself very well."

Alfred pinched the bridge of his nose in great agony. He had been so naïve, to think that he could somehow end Russia's villainy by outplaying him. What an intense amount of suck. There had to be another way… and now Russia was touching him _REDALERTREDALERTAHHHHH_

"_What?_" he demanded, trying and failing to extricate his arm from the clutches of the beast and hoping his face didn't look as terrified as he felt. Russia smiled, but something small and suspiciously resembling annoyance was flickering at the corners of his expression.

"For the fourth time," he said sweetly (and without letting go), "Today is the seventh, which happens to be Christmas in my country, despite your western holidays having ended already. It is really just becoming more of a festival of winter as the years pass; I myself have been neglecting the traditions, though many do still continue them..."

"That's great! Cool! Fantastic! Now _let go_, you effing_—_"

"No. However, I feel that today calls for a little celebration! To conclude, I would like to invite you to join me after the conference for lunch."

"Can't, plans with Arthur!" delivered Alfred without missing a beat.

Just as swiftly, Russia replied, "—Nyet problem, dinner is fine as well!"

Alfred had had enough. This was just too ridiculous.

"Look – I'm not going to _dinner_ with you, are you kidding me? Whose ass did you pull that shit out from? I'll put up with this written harassment for now because I know you're mentally fucked up and probably can't help being a prick, but don't start this bullcrap in person. It's pretty obvious information, but just to reclarify, you and I _hate_ each other, I hate you, _you_ hate _me_, and there's no way in hell I'm–" And suddenly Russia's grip on his arm had gotten painfully tight, his smile much broader and much more threatening.

"Oh, but dear America," said Russia with a higher concentration of cheerfulness than anything else he had said so far, and Alfred was suddenly and dreadfully reminded of exactly _why_ Russia was feared by practically every country at some level, the answer being that he was _scary as shit_. "I think you will come, that you would be overjoyed to, I really do! What do you say?"

Alfred said, "Uh."

And thank god because at that moment the meeting's 15-minute break chose to conclude itself, and he had never been so happy to be attending a conference before in his life, and here was Canada returning to claim his seat again, and Russia would have to leave hooray, and wait what was with that look on his face wait where was his brother going what the hell why was he sitting over there fuck no wait come back!

Russia had already released him, and with a much lighter smile, directed his attention to the newest speaker. Alfred felt the sense of doom that was surrounding him like a mist condense so drastically he could drown in it.

At the very least, his consolation prize was that the other wouldn't try to talk to him while they were conferencing. But then Russia tapped his pen against the table lightly and pushed a sheet of notes towards him without glancing away from the front. Alfred leaned forward to read the neat script along the bottom edge of the paper.

_I will come to collect you later_

_do not worry about it, _followed by a drawn smiley face.

For a moment his abdominal muscles were subjected to extreme strain as he spent every ounce of his strength restraining a whine of despair.


	4. Chapter 4

from russia, with love

* * *

"Get up, you lout."

Feigning deafness, Alfred groaned, rolling onto his side and covering his head with a very pink cushion. It was all too much, his hit points were at zero, and he could no longer go on living. If he could just be left alone to pass away quietly… A sharp kick was suddenly introduced to his shin.

"_Ow!"_ Eyes watering, he glared reproachfully up at England, who was glaring right back while returning his foot to the floor. "I'm wearing down to my last moments of life, Arthur. Please, man, _respect._" He then closed his eyes as he died in great tragedy.

"I'm living out the last seconds of my patience, idiot. How many _decades_ have I been telling you, that couch is a historical _relic_ and for display only – and yet each and every time you feel the need to – to – _drape_ yourself all over it and everything else in here—what in blazes are you doing with that cushion, I spent hours embroidering that border!" Another kick. Alfred, newly reborn, looked depressedly at the cushion. Not only was it very pink, it was also very frilly, and a stitched line of what looked like violet unicorns gallivanted in a square around the center.

He put the cushion back.

England tapped him smartly on the head. "Alright, up you go. You can complain about whatever it is that you've had your knickers in a knot about for the past hour over lunch." He led the way to the parlor, where a china set was laid out neatly next to a dish that closely resembled warm cat food, while a fire flickered on the hearth.

Alfred dragged a chair out and sat down in it heavily. England served him a portion of the (supposed) cat food before beginning on his own.

Several minutes passed. Not a word had been spoken.

"Well?" he finally asked, wiping his fork. Alfred started suddenly, as if coming out of a reverie. Watching someone eat cat food so daintily was kind of mesmerizing.

"Well what?"

A sigh. "_Well_, as I assume from past experience, you're troubled with something or other again, so I conclude that there are more complaints about general life to be voiced? _'Arthur, my economy is the bollocks, what shall I do!' 'Arthur, I had another natural disaster, what shall I do!' 'Arthur, I ate too many hamburgers and my body fat percentage is at a critical level, what shall I do,' _boo hoo hoo and suchlike. It's alright, I'm fully prepared to ignore you – start anytime you wish."

"Oh. Um, well, it's just that Russia's been kind of sending me these creepy letters and being weird as usual but he was talking to me all through the meeting and writing weird little notes and he asked me out to dinner tonight because it's Christmas or something even though it's January and I'm just kind of like, what? So yeah, it's kind of…kind of really weird and I don't know if he's trying to do this or that or whatever, and– and– and—" and suddenly the calamity of it all hit him again, "—and _aghhhh!_" He was handed a cup of tea, presumably to occupy his mouth with and help reduce levels of speech and miscellaneous noises, as had been demonstrated.

"Are you going to?"

Alfred blew at his cup. "Huh?"

England was being way too calm about this debacle. "Go to dinner with him, I mean." Alfred spluttered.

"Uh, _no?_ I – this – this is really freaky, man! Russia! Talking to me! I have no idea what he's up to, or what to do, or even…even…urg, I need you to, I don't know, _save me, please._"

Voluminous eyebrows were raised and then obscured by a fringe of hair (or at least, a small fraction of their total area was). England set down the teapot and gave him his full attention for the first time. "Oh, you're serious."

It was both a question and a statement. He'd believed Alfred hadn't been serious the whole time?! Unbelievable! This was as serious as things could get. Serious business amongst serious business. Alfred closed his mouth around a forkful of not-cat food, fuming to himself, and immediately regretted it.

"Hm." England was pursing his lips in thought, looking suddenly grave. Definitely a much more appropriate attitude for the situation, Alfred thought. "That's certainly…worrisome, I suppose."

"Obviously! What if he's planning on removing all my organs for his private collections or violating my beautiful pure flower of a body with his nasty Russian fingers or throwing me to the ground and wresting my pear halves from my helpless grasp!" The possibilities filed uniformly through his head. Oh, god, this really was terrible!

"No, that's not what I mean, exactly..." A sip of tea.

"Then what?"

"He's dangerous territory, you know."

"Duh?" Alfred began to tap the sugar dish with his fork.

England frowned. "Well, thinking of it – as countries, you know – Russia's relationship with the world as a whole has never been quite…you know? I mean, the organization, and everything… For something sudden, such as an… something like that, well, that wouldn't bode well for the rest of the world at all, would it? It's not quite…quite like that, not now, at least…"

"Arthur."

"Yes?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

England didn't reply, still musing to himself. Alfred continued his fork-tapping impatiently with increasing speed. As far as he knew, 'I have no idea what you're talking about' was a clear literary term whose Webster definition was definitely something along the lines of 'So please explain whatever the hell it is you're trying to say, god damn it', but from the looks of things it seemed like the other was not keeping up with the times. What an unhip guy— and geez, if he would just pay attention to him already…!

England tore the fork from his hand. "Will you _cease?_ That is _excruciatingly_ annoying."

"You're ignoring me, which is _rude_!"

"Rude?" he echoed furiously. "Oh, I see, so I am _rude_ for worrying about your fat arse. Well, do _pardon me, _guvnor, I'm sure you've got plenty to be occupied about, so I'll be leaving you alone with your Russia problems, that way my _rude help_ won't be of hindrance –"

Alfred paled, and found himself lunging to clutch at England's sleeve: a precaution just in case the notion to get up and vanish suddenly struck him. "Hahahahaha, oh you! I was just kidding you know dude jaykay jaykay ohh haha _please don't leave me I will die_."

"Is that how it is, then, that you only come to me when you want something? How deplorable. Sod off."

And it was suddenly a superbly blossoming argument. Orchestral, and magnificent.

"_Hey, you're always the one asking me to—_"

"—_oh, sure, like you could be counted on for anything, you stupid, gitfaced—"_

Back and forth and back again. At the rate they had been going at throughout the past few world events, there'd soon be a row for every single time the two got together.

"—_whoa whoa, what's with the insults, Mister Gentlelady Sissypants, I never said anything—"_

"—_just having to look into your daft face is enough of an offense; oh, if I could trade for anything else in the world—"_

"—_you would probably wish you were bigger, in every sense, if you get what I'm saying, because you definitely need it—"_

"—_feeling insecure, little todger? It doesn't come as a surprise, you tiny prepubescent girl—"_

"—_at least I don't _embroider—"

Fury etched onto his face, England retorted, with a shuddering breath of rage, "—God, am I glad I didn't have to raise you," and then his next breath caught in his throat as the air in the parlor turned to ice, despite the crackling fireplace in the corner that now seemed dull and forlorn.

He'd broken the taboo.

Alfred stared fixedly at the table. He reached for his cup, but saw, from the corner of his eye, that England's hand was moving to do the same, and quickly changed his course to stirring his tea instead, which had already gone lukewarm.

They were never, ever, ever, ever, ever, _ever_ to mention the Revolution. Never ever. It had never been officially established, but at some mental or spiritual level, it had come to be a mutual agreement. It was something painful and stupid and in the past, done and over with, that didn't need to be brought up, never, ever, again. He wasn't looking at him directly to be sure, but England's hands seemed to be shaking as he took a long and silent drink. Alfred continued his relentless stirring, willing the blood in his ears to flow back to his extremities where it would be more useful, and wished he wore his hair like Canada's so that their redness could have been hidden from view, or even, not noticed at all.

Never, ever, ever.

And then England slammed his teacup back onto his saucer like he'd just tossed back a shot, leftover droplets dashing onto the lacey paper doilies and soaking through darkly where they fell. "That's it. Get out."

"What?"

"Out. I've had enough of you for one day."

"Wait, Arthur—" Pulled to his feet, Alfred stumbled as he was shepherded to the foyer of England's house. "Wait a second—"

"You cause disruptions at the world conference, you come here crying expecting me to solve all your problems, you show absolutely no manners when I invite you graciously into my home and go through the trouble of preparing a meal for you." England yanked the front door open and proceeded to shove him through it. "I don't need to put up with this. I've got things to be done. Get _out_."

"Arthur, wait, _wait—_" Alfred scrabbled at the doorframe in a desperate attempt to stay in place, "—at least let me – my coat, it's – it's on the couch—" He sighed in relief and let his arms drop as England relented his pushing.

"Which couch?"

"The historical relic one—"

"Good bye." Slam.

Alfred's mouth flapped wordlessly at the door knocker. How was he such an…What a way to overreact. _He _hadn't even done anything; in fact, it wasn't his fault at all! Who pissed in England's shoes that morning to make him so…_gosh._

"And your cat food tasted really bad," he yelled lamely at the closed door before giving it a hard kick. Oh, God, it was so cold out here. He cursed and glowered at the snow-strewn landscape. Snow sucked. Winter in London sucked. Winter sucked. He was going to die alone in the frozen streets. He'd drag himself through the alleyways, shivering violently in his rags, clutching a copper penny that was his ticket to salvation. Then he'd find a small child huddling in a corner crying because her mother was sick, and give up his small wealth through the goodness of his heart, wrap his meager rags around an abandoned kitten, save a man from debt collectors by shielding him with his body, and finally, illustriously, dive in front of a horse carriage to push a beautiful maiden out of the way, and lose his life. What a fantastic story! It was settled, that'd be the way to go.

Without warning the door cracked open, taking him by surprise. England's eyebrows, followed by his face, both irked and embarrassed, appeared through it. He looked as if he wanted to yell at him in return, but was holding back. "Here," he muttered grudgingly, his arm poking out from behind the door with a thick winter coat hanging off of it.

Alfred took it. "…Thanks." He then accepted a wool sweater, zip-up fleece and jacket in turn.

"Is that everything?"

He finished buttoning his coat up over the sweater, fleece, and jacket, and checked himself over. "Uh, I think so. Wait, no, forgot my…yeah, thanks, that's it." He took the pair of mittens held out to him.

"Look, I… well, Russia," England said, avoiding his gaze. "Watch yourself around him, alright? Don't get on the wrong side of him, but…don't get too close, either. It's—dangerous. Al-alright? I…" He couldn't seem to get out what he wanted to say without suffocating himself.

For a third time, Alfred replied, "Thanks, Arthur." Because if it was England, even the slowest person alive could recognize what was meant to be an apology.

England allowed himself a glance at him, the dissipated tension lightening his expression substantially. "Alfred."

The younger country met his eyes as he pulled his mittens over his hands using his teeth and patted down his front, making sure there were no openings for the cold air to breeze through. "Yeah?"

"You're ridiculous." And he shut the door.

* * *

"_Hey you guys, huhuhu! You've reached the way cool abode of Alfred F. Jones! I'm probably away battling large dinosaurs in New York City or rescuing hot girls from helicopters right now, so leave a message after the beep! If you happen to be a hot girl who needs to be saved from a helicopter, or someone being assaulted by a large dinosaur in New York City, press the pound sign for—uh hey, does that noise mean the tape's running out, I think I just hea—"_ Beep.

"Yo, Tony," Alfred said into his cell phone, while lying on his back on the covers of his hotel bed. "How're things over there? Everything okay? Not that I expect you to answer or anything, but, you know, checking up…" He rolled onto his side and stared at the electrical outlet in the wall.

"Conferences are totally lame. I really wanna go home, but, man, still stuck here for a couple of days. Arthur and I had another fight again…well, it worked out, I guess, if you consider that an apology… He can be pretty cute sometimes in a funny way! Oh! You know, it's like deathly cold over here. It's awful. I'm so glad we didn't have much snow so far this year.

"Oh god, I almost forgot too…that guy. That – that _guy._ He's such a creeper. It's really freaking me out. This morning, at the meeting, he just – urgh. You know he was all like, Hey America! I'm gonna go all reverse psychology on your ass! And then, Hey America! I'm gonna be all up in your personal space! And – oh man, yeah, you know what he said? He's like, Want to go to dinner with me? Seriously. It was totally a threat. It was scary as hell. And then he's like, I'm gonna come pick you up. Only he didn't say it, he actually wrote it on a note, I mean, _as_ a note, I mean…wait, what am I saying…?" White noise from the phone speaker overtook his lapse in talking briefly. Alfred ran his fingers over the texture of the bed coverlet and gathered his thoughts while wondering if Tony was actually listening to the answering machine at the other end.

"Right, yeah. So I really don't know what to do…I mean, I didn't really think he'll go through with it but now I'm not so sure anymore, because it's _Russia,_ you know? The guy who's always a few carrots short of a snowman…whoa, forget that, sorry my jokes suck serious balls. That didn't even make sense. Uh…uh huh, so, what am I going to do if he actually shows up? I mean, I don't think he even knows where I'm staying, but he might actually…" Dread began to ooze stickily back into his chest. "Oh, god, he might actually…what if he actually comes?!"

The answering machine was still rolling and naturally failed to present any solutions to him.

"Alright, I think I'm gonna go…well, I have to figure this shit out. Oh, geez! That's all I guess…what time is it over there? D.C. is five or six hours behind, I think? So it's around noon? Make sure you eat, and uh…call me if anything comes up or you need something, 'kay? Although you've never called me before, but still. Alright. Take care, Tony, I'll see you in a few days." He pressed the END key and the screen lit up in response before he snapped his cell phone shut and turned so he was face down in the sheets.

"Ghwhefffffffff," he mumbled into them. Man. That hadn't been a very engaging conversation, but it had gotten his cognitive muscles moving in the negative direction once again.

Russia Russia Russia.

The more Alfred thought about him, the more convinced he was getting that Russia was _definitely_ going to pop the hell up out of nowhere any second now. It was already pretty dark out. Pretty dark…

Oh god oh god oh god.

Was he _really going to come?_

Not knowing what hotel he was booked in wasn't much of a defensive strategy. Russia could have just bullied the information out of someone else, Canada, for example. That guy was definitely not at the top of his list regarding the United States' national security. Though maybe Russia wouldn't even think of him to interrogate…

What was he even doing. Laying here pondering was not going to solve any problems or save any lives, at least, not his! He was a man of action. America was a land of action. An icon of action. A figure of action. An action figure, even!

He had to take action.

He had to…to…

He had to run away. Yes! That was all there was to it. Even if Russia could track down his hotel, track down his room number, there was nothing he could do if his victim was nowhere in sight! London was a big place. He had definitely been too hasty in judging it earlier. After all, before him a plethora of hiding places were coming into possibility, as efficient and diverse as could be.

Yeah, Alfred thought to himself, beginning to deck on his armor against coldness once again. Yeah! This is perfect! After all, a real man knew when fighting was the right choice or the wrong choice. In this case, well, avoiding direct confrontation was definitely a pretty legit idea. Just like the second world war. Isolationism. Even if it had been cut short, it had still been a swell little chestnut while it lasted in his opinion, and it would probably be just as swell now. Also in his opinion.

It was a plan. He'd escape into London. Plan London Escape. It had such a dangerous ring to it, too. Kind of similar to something like Grand Theft London Escape, only that didn't make a lot of sense, and besides, he wasn't stealing anything.

…Except stealing _away!_

Christ his jokes really were terrible. He quickly eradicated the thought from his mind.

Okay! All six layers of clothing were in place. Hat, mittens, earmuffs, check. Wallet, cell phone, check and check. Alfred F. Jones was making this happen. Plan London Escape was go.

Feeling refreshingly liberated, he strode, with almost a spring in his step, to the door of his room and pulled it open, his eyes shining with resolve.

"Privet, Amerika!"

Foiled.


	5. Chapter 5

from russia, with love

* * *

This was so awkward.

Alfred shifted uneasily in his seat as he swept the spacious dining room with a wary glance. The restaurant was large and dimly lit, boasting replica paintings that hung on sepia-toned walls to give the interior that certain 'atmosphere'. Petit square tables were arranged in aesthetic patterns, set primly with gleaming silverware and small vases of freshly cut orchids. Where the hell did they find fresh orchids in the middle of winter? He would like to know.

As for the patrons of said restaurant – couples. Lots of them. Simpering Englishladies and Englishmen either middle-aged or in their twenties and having a grand old time consuming expensive animals and gaping vapidly at each others' faces. What all these couples were doing eating out on a Thursday night that had no particular significance to Londoners, he did not know. Maybe it was just everybody's birthday, and they all chose to come to this particular restaurant… _at the same time_. How…irritating. But what did he care about the business of fellow diners who just happened to be couples. Of course it wasn't that he resented them, no way. Well, if not that, then why did the scene bother him? His eyes swung back to rest on the beaming face of his table companion, directly across from him, and it all made sense immediately.

He was here with Hell Incarnate himself, that was why.

Man, it was bad enough that he was here with Russia—and that was _extremely_ bad. But all these people here, all these – these _couples_… what if they…they got the wrong idea or something? Holy shit! As if Alfred didn't want to die enough already! On _top_ of that, he was forbidden to make a scene when traveling internationally – and while any non-elite officials knew him only as a government representative, it still wouldn't look too good on the news if an American agent trashed a respectable dining establishment in an unsuspecting European country for no easily defendable reason. That also meant proclaiming loudly his unhappiness at being held here against his will to everyone inside the restaurant (just in case they were thinking _otherwise_, you know) to show exactly how unhappy he was at being held here against his will to everyone inside the restaurant was not an available option to him at the moment.

So he was trapped here, seated embarrassingly at what was clearly an intimate _couples'_ table in a restaurant that was clearly a popular _couples'_ hot spot with what was clearly a very large foreign man whom any onlookers with a good mind for inference and a poor eye for Alfred's suffering might speculate was his partner in a _couples'_ relationship. Oh. God.

This. Was. So. Awkward.

Not to mention terrifying at the same time. Just look at this. All this cutlery everywhere. Russia could just reach over and disembowel him with a grapefruit spoon whenever he felt like it. While the ceramic dinner plates seemed sturdy enough, he didn't think that they'd hold up too well against a continuous assault. Besides, who knew what kind of biceps and firepower the guy kept hidden under that coat of his all year long? He could probably punch right through a reinforced gas tank with a rubber eraser if he wanted to.

_Dear God_, Alfred prayed. _I will do whatever you want. I will destroy global warming. I will cure cancer. I will go on a diet. Just, please, help me out of here! _

"How are you liking the place, America? I took a great deal of time choosing a suitable restaurant for us tonight."

_Dear God,_ Alfred prayed again. _If I talk to Russia, will you back me up and smite him while he's distracted?_

There was a brief pause while neither of the two men at the table received a response to their inquiries.

_OK, man. It's cool. Just let me know, aight? I'm counting on you._

Putting his trust in the heavens, Alfred resigned himself to playing his part, trying his hardest to keep his voice steady and sure of himself. Weakness must not be shown. "…So let me break this down for a second. You're Russian. I'm American. We're smack dab in the middle of London, England. And you decide to go to a French restaurant?"

"Da," replied Russia, smiling at him.

"…Do you…have an explanation for this?"

"Da," replied Russia, still smiling.

Silence.

"…Okay."

"Da," replied Russia, smile exactly the same. Alfred closed his eyes and exhaled, before opening them again to find that the smile seemed to have broadened.

_Hey, God. What are you doing. I need you._

"Well," said Russia, speaking suddenly, "I think it is very assimilationist of you to hold such bias! Why must a Russian eat Russian? Why must an American eat American? There is no question as to the whys of English, however, for reasons I believe obvious."

Alfred had not lost his life yet, so it looked like things were going pretty well! Maybe he was feeling confident enough to take a few risks. Might as well try. "This American never asked you to start a debate, _Russian_. The way you talk makes you sound like a cannibal. _Privet, I am Roossian! Roossian eat Roossian, grow biggest massles in all farm village! I poosh tractor through snowstorm with massles, more power than bool!_"

"Oh, but now you are just being racist, America. I thought your country's diversity was supposed to be a defining element. Not without saying that there is hardly any sense in your little generalization, as well. Though I will grant you the credit of sounding very cute just now, so do not feel too bad!"

A vein in Alfred's brain pulsed. _Ha ha ha, oh, God, you are such a cheeky guy. What are you doing up there? Pick up the pace, dude._

"…Okay. Sure. How about we get this over with so I can go home."

Russia obediently beckoned for a waitress. "Of course, of course. We are here to eat and celebrate our outing together, after all!"

"I thought we were here to celebrate Christmas in Russia in January in England in a French restaurant," grumbled Alfred, still waiting expectantly for the mahogany doors to burst open and holy angels to come storming in with tanks and machine guns to rescue him. He slapped a fancy menu onto the plate in front of him and began to scan it. He was actually kind of starving; a bite of cat food was all he'd had so far that day, and that hadn't been extraordinarily filling or palatable. A waiter stopped by to fill their water glasses before moving away.

"Da, that is true, as well! A good Christmas then, I wish to you."

Alfred ignored him and tried to find some suitably comforting eatables amongst the lines of embossed and italicized print, such as '_pizza_'. But wait, what the hell was this everything was in French. And there were no translations in sight! What a disaster. He then read through the list again in search of '_le pizza_'. It didn't work.

He almost considered searching for french fries, since it was a _French_ restaurant, but he'd only just figured out the irony there not too long ago and didn't feel like experiencing that same discouragement again so soon. Alfred sneaked at look over at the other man and was discouraged anyway by the fact that Russia was still there, as well as still staring at him and still looking cheerful.

"You're paying?"

"I am so."

Well, okay. Time to order whatever the hell the most expensive thing they had here was… if he had the guts. Alfred wasn't sure. His stomach was, though.

"How may I serve you this evening?" asked a very pretty and well-mannered waitress, in a contrastingly chipper British voice that grated against Alfred's eardrums.

"Uh, yeah, I think I'll have—"

"—This," Russia cut in suddenly, pointing out something in the menu to the waitress that Alfred couldn't see from where he sat. "For him." The waitress looked between the two of them, and her mouth twitched slightly.

She was covering up a grin, Alfred realized with clammy horror, too nauseated to protest as she busily made a mark on her paper order pad. _God, please, I can't stand this much longer!_

"And for you, sir?"

"Just this one is fine," Russia replied, pointing at something else.

The waitress wrote it down, not without another glance at Alfred's appalled face and Russia's contented one. "Do you have any wines in mind this evening?"

She was met with a beaming smile. "I am not very much experienced with these French wines…would you mind picking out a suitable one?" Russia nodded his head in Alfred's direction, and added, rather unnecessarily, "For us two?"

Her grin could no longer be contained. "Ve—" the waitress quickly smothered a _teehee_ before it could surface, "—very well. Please be patient as the chefs make your order."

Alfred clasped his trembling hands in prayer as she left hurriedly before she lost control. _Hey, God…I'm begging you…_

Please, kill someone. At this point he didn't really care if it was Russia or himself that died. Either option would be a relief.

Russia's head was craned towards the double kitchen doors where the waitress had disappeared into. "What a nice young girl," he commented. "She really did seem sincere in being happy to serve us, do you not you think? That daughter of Angliya."

Alfred could have answered with a lot of things that he did not think, such as how he did not think much of England's daughter and her 'sincerity', or how he did not think much of the Russian ordering his food for him, or how he did not think much at all of being here in the first place. "…You know French?" he asked instead.

Russia blinked in innocent confusion. "I cannot say I am fluent."

"But your menu..."

"Oh, this? This is the English menu. Were you not aware?"

Alfred closed the menu he was holding and read the cover. _Ver. français_. How wonderful.

"I thought that you, America, were capable of conversing in French? Was I incorrect?" Russia looked apologetic. "Pardon me. I assumed that I had researched your background extensively, but I was perhaps mistaken…"

Was that just a confession that the other man had been stalking him? It was. It totally was. What a creeper. _What a creeper_.

"It's been a long time," Alfred muttered. "You forget shit." Where was his heavenly salvation? It was definitely way past due. He was starting to think that no one up there was listening to his pleas after all.

_Yo, God. Seriously. Don't let me down. Come on. Come onnnn!_

His nerves couldn't handle this. It wasn't like he was _afraid_ of Russia, but, well… yeah, he was afraid of Russia. And there was nowhere to run. He was the unblemished and innocent little rabbit, who wanted to do nothing more than lounge around minding his own business and ingesting readily available foliage (of his own choice), and Russia was the massive bearlike monster with razor claws and cutlass teeth and way more mass in kilograms than what was good for him, who had him backed up defenselessly inside a dead-end cave and was treating him to dinner.

The massive bearlike monster giggled through his cutlass teeth. "How interesting! I was always under impression that America was just a foolish simpleton and there would hardly be enough details about you to fill a housewives' tabloid. Please forgive me. Now, do tell me more about yourself!"

"Okay. Believe it or not, I actually like to choose my own food when eating out. I know, it's pretty crazy."

"I am sorry," Russia replied, not sounding very sorry at all. "Did I make you sad? Do not forget it was I who chose to invite _you_ to dinner, you modernized child. Although you may be without fear! I was sure to ask for the most suitable course for you."

Damn right he had better been sure. Alfred was extremely ravenous and extremely displeased with life right now. He wasn't confident he could properly manage both extremes at the same time. The other country had better have ordered him a horse or something.

Russia was still trying to engage him in conversation. "What are your hobbies, America?"

Sigh.

Alfred was through talking with this guy. _Are you even on my side, God?_ "I dunno."

"Oh, now," wheedled Russia good-naturedly. "I am sure you have some! Besides eating and being an idiot, that is."

Well, that pretty much summed it up. What else did he want him to say? "I play games," Alfred said resignedly. Russia leaned his elbows on the tabletop and folded his hands under his chin, as if settling into a stimulating discussion.

"Is that so? What kind of games?"

"Video games."

"What kind of video games?"

"I dunno."

"But you _do _know. Why must you skirt around the issue?"

Why did it even matter? "Video games in general. Shooters. Racing. Fighting."

"No tactical games?"

"What?"

Russia smiled condescendingly. Just eight letters and already too complex of a vocabulary word. "Forgive me. No puzzles, strategy?"

"Not really."

"And what about sports?"

"What, sports games?"

"I refer to sporting activities."

"Lately, not really."

"Why is that?"

"I dunno."

A pause.

"…Amerika," spoke Russia after a short stretch of silence, and as the hair on the back of his neck rose, Alfred realized for the first time that he _really_ didn't like it when Russia said his title like that. In that gross, thick, throaty Russian way that sounded like the name was rolling off his tongue before being snapped in half. "I would be lying if I said this was a particularly enjoyable conversation. I really would like to get to know you better, and I am _sure_ you feel the same! Can you not be a little more accommodating?"

Like hell he felt the same, and no, he could _not_ be a little more accommodating, was what Alfred had been about to say, but just as he opened his mouth to do so, Russia reached down, picked up his dessert knife, and began to toy with it casually. "Fine," he said hurriedly, taking a large gulp of water from his glass and wondering where the hell their food was and/or what the hell God was doing taking so long to save him. If there wasn't any intervention soon, he might end up with a handful of stab holes in some of his more valuable organs.

Russia clapped his hands together. "Very good!" he said with irritatingly childish pleasure. "Now let us talk. Again, why is it you have not played any sports lately?"

"No time." Alfred propped his cheek against his palm and glared sulkily at the tablecloth. Then, remembering he was supposed to be being accommodating, he added, "Because of work. The last decade has been kind of bad, obviously. And there's no one around for a good game anyway. The old kids are all grown up and moved away or something, and the locals now don't know me. Sucks, but nothing to do about it."

Russia looked reasonably satisfied with his response. "I do agree. It is rather disappointing not being able to get along with your own children, da? Especially in this day and age, when unwarranted attempts at being friendly merely cause mistrust and suspicion in the other party." He hummed to himself as he sipped his water and turned to see if their waitress was returning yet.

Alfred gawped at him. For fuck's sake. Was this guy _seriously_ not taking his own hint? If Russia's advances weren't unwarranted attempts at being 'friendly', he didn't know what was. And in this case, there was definitely logic in being mistrustful and suspicious.

"So then, dear America, I take it that when away from work, you are mostly a shut-in? Similar to Japan?"

Scowl. "I'm not that drastic. I get out enough."

"Oh?"

Uncomfortably, he mumbled, "I go walking with – with the President's dog. Sometimes. And – uh, you know, stuff."

Russia waited expectantly. The dessert knife glinted between his fingers.

"Uh, planting things. With Tony." Admitting this to Russia was embarrassing for some reason that Alfred couldn't discern. It had never been problematic to talk about before…but then again, just look at who he was talking to. It wasn't that strange after all.

Russia's eyebrows were raised. "You enjoy gardening? How unexpected."

"…I guess? I mean, I was just farmland when I was born, and growing up, there's, well, King Cotton, oranges, etcetera…"

"So thus far we have gathered that your leisure activities include not only eating and being an idiot, but the playing of video games, walking of dogs and botany. This is quite illuminating! And here I had thought that your hobbies were limited to only the first two."

Alfred was saved from making a half-formed retort that would have sounded stupid when he noticed their waitress returning, armed with a serving tray and a bottle of wine. Geez. Took them long enough. God also seemed to be taking his own sweet time in helping him as well. For the umpteenth time that evening, Alfred wished he knew why.

The waitress seemed to have recovered herself during her time spent away from their table. "Hello again," she said, in a reasonably normal tone. "Thank you for waiting!" The bottle of wine was set down and a dish carefully lifted off of the tray.

Was that fucking _steak?_ Oh dear god, it was. Russia had ordered him steak. Oh, _hell_ yes. His level of famishment was probably off the charts right now. What he needed was some real man's food, and that steak looked absolutely, deliciously _perfect,_ albeit a tad on the small side. In spite of himself, Alfred felt his opinion of the Russian rise a bit, and promptly deflate as the plate with the deliciously perfect steak on it was placed in front of said Russian.

"That had better be mine," he growled warningly.

Russia beamed at him. "Nyet," he replied, almost sing-song. Another plate was set in front of Alfred. He stared down at it blankly.

"What is this."

Giggle. "Well, what does it appear to be?"

"It appears to be a salad."

"That sounds about correct!"

What.

What.

What was this.

His brain could not even—what.

"Is this salad for me."

"Indeed!"

What.

"Why?" he asked, in a small and horrified voice. Russia almost seemed to snicker for a moment before quickly masking the action by unfolding his napkin and draping it onto his lap.

The waitress, who had been busily uncorking the bottle of wine while pretending not to be listening, carefully filled Alfred's wine glass before putting it back down. She leaned over inconspicuously at the same time and whispered furtively, "I reckon it's just his way of saying he cares – mates like us got to maintain our figures to keep the boys happy, right?" before straightening back up and reaching to fill a glass of wine for Russia as well.

Alfred finally realized why God had not stepped in and stopped this fiasco from stampeding any further, or, at least, he had narrowed it down to two possibilities. Either God hated him, or God did not exist. One of the two. And in all actuality, it didn't matter which, because both possibilities _were terrible_. He poured the entire glass down his throat and came up wheezing.

"_I despise you, you wretched, cold asshole of a bastard,_" he ground out slowly, hostilely and with great deliberation. The waitress covered her mouth, shoulders shaking, and ran to clear another table before her laughter could escape.

Russia merely smiled at him and began to cut up his steak.

Alfred watched him forlornly. This whole situation was too tragic for him to be angry. It just made him depressed. "How is your small French steak?" he asked dejectedly.

The other chewed appreciatively. "It is veal."

"Seal?"

"Calf meat. And da, it is very good."

"Oh." Well, it was just like Russia to go around devouring baby cows. Probably.

Alfred picked up a fork and looked at it sadly. This was the uncoolest day ever. It really was. And he could do nothing against it from happening. All he was capable of in the form of rebellion was to eat his small French salad with a dinner fork instead of a salad fork. Yeah. Woohoo. Viva la revolution.

There was nothing to get him riled up, even. Life was so unfair. He vaguely considered implementing the dinner fork in a suicide attempt, but shook his head at himself mentally. Why did he let things get to him so easily? It wasn't that bad. He'd never go that far.

But as a commotion was heard by the entrance of the restaurant, and Alfred turned around to see what was going on and try to think about something else other than his troubles for a moment, his mind reinstated that, yes. It _was_ that bad. And going that far seemed to be a spectacular idea right now.

Because it was France.

Surrounded by hot chicks.

"Mr. Bonnefoy," the seating attendant was exclaiming, "How wonderful that you've returned! Has business brought you back to town, sir?"

"Oh, _please_," crooned France, to the charmed tittering of the two British girls he had in each arm and of a trailing third who was unfortunately left without the company of one of his extremities. "How many times have I told you, Nicholas, it is _Monsieur_. Monsieur Bonnefoy! This is an establishment français, n'est pas, my ladies?" His ladies nodded in rosy-cheeked agreement.

Oh Christ. The idea of being trapped here with both Russia_ and _France was so absurdly awful it had never even crossed his mind as a way this day could possibly be worse. Maybe if France and his groupies sat somewhere far away from their table, it would be okay…

"Of course, Monsieur. Now, I'm sorry to say that your usual tables are occupied this evening, but if you have any other preference, that would be no problem at all…?"

"C'est vrai? Zut, quel désastre… ah, let me see, then, Nicholas."

Oh dear god, oh dear god, now France was scanning the room. Please don't see me, Alfred begged silently, shrinking in his chair. _Please_ don't see me – their eyes met, France's entire face lit up, and in terror Alfred whipped back around in his seat.

_Please don't come!_ _PLEASE don't come!_

He chanced a quick peek over his shoulder and a hopeless little whimper crawled out of his throat. France was making a beeline straight for him.

Okay, don't panic. Stay calm. Maybe he had just seen a very boobed-up waitress or something and was zooming towards his direction to chat her up. It was immensely possible.

"_Alfred!_" boomed France affectionately as soon as the distance between them closed to a couple of meters, "_Mon cher, ma fleur, mon mignon gar_ç_on, pourquoi est-ce que tu as ici? Ah, mon coeur – come now, give ton grand-frère magnifique a loving hug—_" He was kept effectively at bay with the dinner fork Alfred had remembered he was holding and was now pointing threateningly in the direction of France's crotch.

"Shut your damn mouth, France, and don't you dare touch me," he warned darkly.

France looked highly affronted. "Qu'est-que c'est _coldness,_ cher Alfred? And what is this 'France' nonsense? Call me _mon amour Francis,_ s'il te plaît – ah, and here are my lovely mademoiselles!" More tittering was heard as his lovely mademoiselles finally caught up with him after his unexpected sprint towards the back of the restaurant.

"Anyway, we shall sit here," France declared, and immediately pushed two couples' tables together right next to Alfred's. Great. "Oh, cher Alfred, it has really been trop long! We must catch up! And un moment – what are we doing, conversing in this nasty anglais? Let us parlons avec _la langue d'amour_, d'accord? Quelle idée parfaite! Ben, ici, en Londres, il y a _très_ froid, non? Ah – j'ai oublié demander, mais, comment vas-tu, Alfred?" France's blabbering ceased as he sat down and waited patiently for Alfred to reply. The three British girls sat as well, now tittering about how _Ooh, Monsieur Francis, you're so French…_

Alfred stared at him in disgust. What a stupid shit.

Russia chose that moment to supply helpfully, "Dear America has forgotten most of his French, did you not know?"

Noticing Russia's presence for what was apparently the first time, France's eyes boggled until they were roughly as round as saucers. "L-le russe," he stuttered in shock.

"Bonjour," Russia greeted pleasantly. Looking over at him, it seemed that Russia was just as displeased to see France there as Alfred was, according to the dessert knife that had once again wormed its way into the Russian's fingers. This feeling of kinship did nothing to comfort him.

"Well, euh—" floundered France, clearly aware that he was now in perilous territory, "—mes – mes jolies, why don't we place our orders now?" He quickly waved at a nearby waiter and thus successfully pulled himself to safer ground.

Russia smiled at Alfred before turning back to their meal. Evidently he considered the nuisance to be taken care of. But not quite, Alfred thought moodily. There was still one very intense nuisance here sitting across from him. He stabbed a tomato slice with great savagery and proceeded to masticate it.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked suddenly. It had never even occurred to him before. But then again, maybe he didn't want to know.

"Doing what, dear America?"

Alfred slapped his hand against the table in frustration. "You obviously know what the hell I'm talking about," he said crossly, noticing that the other had set down all his utensils and was giving Alfred his full attention, and not sure if that was a good or bad thing.

"You are referring to my inviting of you to join me for dinner on the day of my country's winter celebration?"

"Yeah, sure, but also like. Everything else. The letters. The being weird. We don't _talk_, Russia, and you know that pretty damn well!"

Russia hummed unconcernedly to himself.

Alfred hesitated, but the country's eyes were still on him. "So – so why are you doing this? What are your intentions? What the hell do you _want?_"

Russia continued his humming, and Alfred watched him in apprehension, the increasing amount of time passing making him a little more convinced that he didn't want to know the answer after all. An unanticipated cool touch startled him out of his distressingly nervous thoughts. Alfred glanced down and promptly flipped the fuck out.

_RUSSIA WAS HOLDING HIS HAND_

_WHOA NOT GOOD WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOAAAAAA_

From the next table over, France was bugging out, eyes glued to the scene, his girls momentarily forgotten.

"_What_ are you _doing?_" Alfred hissed, heart hammering. Oh dear sweet mother of Jesus he hoped no one else was looking this way!

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Russia, looking quite oblivious and in good spirits.

"_Your—hand—_"

"So you ask what I want," Russia continued, ignoring him. "I must admit, I was not prepared to bring the subject up so soon… it is rather – _hard,_ in my opinion, to admit…"

Between violent coronary palpitations, Alfred noted that Russia actually seemed _bashful_. Oh god, oh god! This was extremely disconcerting!

"…My meaning is, well…oh dear, this is _quite_ _hard_ to say, I am embarrassed…"

Goosebumps quickly washed over his body until Alfred's entire being was covered in them. His goosebumps had goosebumps. _Unsafe, unsafe, unsafe—!_

"…well, to put it in simple terms, I suppose what I want is to…"

Oh god, oh god, he definitely didn't want to know, he _definitely_ didn't want to know! Why, _why_, had he asked, _why?_

"…what I want is for us to…"

No, no, no, don't say it, _don't say it_, he didn't want to hear, no! If he could cover his ears, he would, but right now only one of his ears could be covered since his other was currently captured in the dungeon of Russia's ginormous hand and so he'd hear it anyway, _aghhhh—!_

"…for us to be…"

_No,_ Alfred sobbed internally. _Don't tell me. Don't proclaim your undying love for me. I'm going to die—_

"…pen pals!"

_Oh, god, he'd said it!_ _He'd really said it! He really_

"What."

Russia was sheepishly avoiding his gaze. "Oh, dear, I really admitted it to you," he mumbled through a sip of wine.

"…You want to be…pen pals?"

"That is correct!"

"…Somehow I get the feeling that that's a load of crap."

Russia beamed at him. "Do you accept?"

"What? No!"

"Oh, how disappointing," Russia said, giving his hand a squeeze. He hadn't even let go yet? Jesus!

"I—for god," Alfred huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Seriously. What the hell are you trying to do?"

"But, I have already told you, _Amerika,_" sang Russia, swirling the wine glass in his other hand, and Alfred pursed his lips at the emphasis.

"Bullshit."

"You may believe whatever you are inclined to," Russia returned dismissively.

Alfred's irritation swelled. If he was going to be subjected to this fucking _harassment_, then god damn it, he had a right to know why. "_What the hell are you trying to accomplish?_" he demanded.

"Must I repeat myself so? I would like to be pen pals!" Swirl swirl.

"And I repeat _myself,_ bullshit."

"But I speak the truth." Swirl.

"_Bullshit_. You don't want to be fucking _pen pals,_ you freak, that's completely absurd, because _you hate me_—"

Mid-swirl, the wine glass shattered in Russia's hand. France's head shot around in alarm.

"Oh, dear!" said Russia cheerfully, but then followed with, "_Shit, chert poberi_—" as a blossoming burgundy stain began to spread across the tails of his scarf. With an "Excuse me just a moment, dear America," he stood abruptly and quickly made his way to the restroom.

Alfred sat, feeling shaken. The dark look on Russia's face, though still in the presence of a wide smile, just before he had gripped the glass and Alfred's hand too tightly, had been…frightening.

France wasted no time in rushing to stand next to him. "Alfred," he whispered, French abandoned, "What are you doing here with that man?"

"It's not like a have a choice!" he replied hotly. France searched his eyes.

"Alfred, it's not – not a – a—"

Alfred sighed.

"Well, we're definitely not trying to develop _peaceful world relations_," he said sourly.

For some reason, France actually looked happier. "So it's a…a _date?_"

"Uh, fuck you, no," Alfred muttered furiously. "Please don't think I'd be here for any other reason than being forced."

"So it's a _date?_"

"What the hell is wrong with your brain?" France indulged himself in a chuckle, but then sobered.

"Mon cher Alfred," he said quietly, and Alfred stiffened at both the unexpected seriousness and the hands that were suddenly cupping his face. "Écoutes-moi, d'accord?"

"What?" he said automatically, reaching to bat the hands away.

"Shhh. Écoutes, s'il te plaît. Cet homme…"

"France, I can't understand—"

"_Écoutes!_ Cet homme, il est dangereux. Il est très dangereux. Le russe. Comprends?"

"What are you—?"

"Alfred," France said, eye to eye, and then, slowly, "_C'est dangereux. Il est vraiment dangereux. Est-ce que tu comprends?_"

Yes, he understood now – the French. There were enough similarities with English to get the picture. But no, what he didn't understand – why was he being told this? He would have thought Russia being dangerous was kind of obvious, taking into the account the many examples of him being a psychotic creepy ass that existed to testify this. But France was so grim…

"Oui, frère," he replied despite his confusion, stumbling over the pronunciation, "I un—je comprends. Je…sais."

"Bon," said France, ruffling his hair before he walked back to his table, with first a relapse of annoying in which he said to Alfred with a wink, "Enjoy your _date_," and then cried loudly to the squeals of his female companions, "Now, mes anges, who would like to pour this _Monsieur _a good glass of some Pérignon?"

Man what the hell was up with today, all this doom and gloom and perplexity? Most unsuperb.

"Were you sad while I was gone?"

Russia had returned, scarf considerably wetter. A trace of the stain remained, but he was all smiles once again.

Alfred scowled. "_No._" Quite the opposite, if the opposite included being baffled as hell.

"You have barely touched that which I ordered for you with such consideration."

Alfred directed his scowl at the salad. "Whoops,_ my bad_. Look, I'm tired, alright? I've put up with your BS for long enough. I think now's a good time for this ridiculousness to end."

"Oh, you are leaving? Do you not want dessert?"

Russia wasn't making any move to stop him, so Alfred began to throw on his various jackets. "Yeah, uh, no thanks."

"Hmmmm."

Buttoning his coat, Alfred turned to leave.

"Amerika!"

"What _now?_" Russia was holding out a slip of paper and a pen to him. Another letter or note? He took it.

"It's blank."

Russia giggled. "Well, of course. Your email address."

"My what?"

"You have a personal email address, do you not? Apart from your official government one. Write it down for me. It would be much more convenient than mailing letters, I think. Although I do find letters much more personal and endearing!"

"Are you serious?"

"I am."

Alfred glowered at the paper, and then at him. He quickly scribbled on it with the pen before crumpling it and throwing both back at Russia's chest, and left the restaurant as swiftly as possible before any stupider things could happen.

Russia flattened the paper out in his hands and read what had been written inside.

_no_

He smiled at it.


	6. Chapter 6

from russia, with love

* * *

The egg whites were starting to cook through, but the yolks hadn't yet begun to solidify.

This was quite a problem.

Quite a problem.

It didn't even have to be. Why was such a silly process such as "frying" necessary? Terribly inconvenient and slow, and with a high percentage of error to boot. Not to mention nearly all the beneficial nutrients in the ingredients were sapped away by the time they were done. To think that all of this strife could be avoided in an instant with the quick and painless utilization of a tight knot of a couple million mild and reliable gamma rays, cooking whatever it was directed upon to the utmost perfection in less than a picosecond. If only people weren't so susceptible to these silly things like tongue cancer, or whatever that mouth organ was called.

The coffee machine released its last few drops of hazelnut roast into the pot and announced the completion with a faint _click_. Tony patted it approvingly. Now here was a piece of remarkably impressive prehistoric machinery. Nothing ridiculous like vegetable lipids or gas combustion involved, just good old-fashioned electric charges and aluminum compounds. Still a bit inconvenient, but admirably hardworking despite its simplicity. It _was_ rather adorable, wasn't it?

What was the time? The grandfather clock was just out of view from the kitchen entrance. Tony pattered over to look up at it. The large obtrusive stick on its face had situated itself confidently at X, while the medium obtrusive stick hovered indecisively between the V and VI at approximately 276.43˚. The incurably energetic small stick was flicking about all four quadrants, as usual. Tony shook his head. It was never going to get anywhere, circling endlessly like that. The small stick would benefit from taking after the example set by its two superiors.

By this world's standards of time, his host had been under sensory suspension for what was almost 13 ½ hours now. Far more than what was needed to perform a nightly anatomical maintenance. Then again, the by-product odors released from cooking should have sped up the waking process…

Sure enough, at that moment Alfred was fumbling around his room in a drowsy, half-dressed, half-blind state. God damn it. Why could he never find anything in here? Where were his glasses? Where were his pants?

Something glinted from amidst a pile of towels and socks on the floor by his bedside stand. Texas! He grabbed it and shoved it against his nose. Ouch. Not Texas. Alfred squinted at it dazedly. A metal-lined paintbrush. How the hell did that get there.

Something else glinted from a crevice between his messily rumpled blankets. Texas! He grabbed it and shoved it slightly more warily against his nose. The room slowly came into focus. Yep, this was the one.

Hmmm, thought Alfred sleepily, swaying slightly as he stood in the center of his room. Being up equals bad. Bed equals warm and comfortable, and warm and comfortable equals good. But hunger also equals bad, and being warm, comfortable and hungry was, unfortunately, a package deal. God damn those conniving salesman. Being up it was.

Foregoing the pants, he cracked the door open and stumbled out into the cold unknown. Mmmph. The glass windows in the doors leading to the open-air hallway that framed the small courtyard were fogged up. Alfred drew a sad face on it with his finger before rubbing out a section and peering through at the garden. What was this. Even more snow? Stupid winter. Just look at his poor rosebushes. Freezing to death, much like his legs.

Faint steps from around the corner made him turn. Oh, oh, it was…!

"_Tonyyyyyyyyyyyyy!_" wailed Alfred with sudden emotional wakefulness, and sprang at him. Said alien quickly stepped back to avoid full impact.

"_Tony, waaah, Tony, it's been so long, I got home from the airport last night but I couldn't find you and it was freezing in here and I was so sad and then I fell asleep and now I'm not asleep I'm awake but it's still freezing in here and_ _I missed youuuuuuuu_..."

Tony patted one of the arms that had been flung about his neck and waited patiently until the griping died down. Alfred sneezed into his shoulder.

Shaking his head, Tony meandered over to the entrance of the bathroom, and Alfred, having not yet let go, was dragged along. He was deposited like a sack of potatoes in on the linoleum-tiled floor and, with the incline of a large gray head, instructed to brush his teeth. Alfred consented with only moderate intervals of yawn-strewn grumbling. Tony tottered back to his bedroom and then returned, throwing a pair of pants at him.

Minutes later, and now fully clothed, Alfred sat at the kitchen table, watching his space friend serve him eggs and pour him coffee. Life was good. He was back in the States, thank god, an entire ocean away from the greater majority of countries whose aim it was, apparently, to give him as much grief as possible while he tried to fix all of their problems ever so generously. Back in his house, safe and sound. Back with his wonderful and illustrious housemate, with his wonderful and illustrious thin gray body, and his wonderful and illustrious apatheticness, and his wonderful and illustrious current action of serving Alfred with some wonderful and illustrious eggs-over-easy.

"Tony," Alfred said tearfully, puncturing an innocent and unsuspecting yolk, "You're so great. Sunny side-ups are so great. You're so great. What would I do without you?"

Tony only looked at him serenely with his deep red eyes before rustling open and immersing himself behind a newspaper.

Alfred punctured his second yolk with scorn. "You wouldn't believe what bullshit I had to put up with over there! I mean, the world conference was bad enough – what am I saying, it wasn't _bad enough_, it was a complete _disaster_ – and I had to deal with Arthur's cooking and Russia being a freak, and then I'm all zipped up and ready to go home, right? But _no_, five minutes before I get to the airport my phone rings and it's all Hey boss what's up? And then it's all Whoa what you want me to stay and wait for you because you've got a meeting over here too? _Sure no problem ha ha ha ha ha_ I am _totally okay_ with sticking it out here in Hellville for three more weeks!" Tony turned a page of the newspaper, obviously not paying attention.

"And you know what? What do we both hate, Tony? What sucks more than anything in the world? _Coldness_. _Winter_. And guess what it does the whole time I'm over there? _It snows_. _It's piss cold_. The temperature drops like teen celebrities on popularity charts. It was a total _shitaster!_" emphasized Alfred, shouting for no reason and spraying bits of egg everywhere.

Tony, luckily, was safe behind his newspaper refuge. He peered disapprovingly at his host over the top of the classifieds section.

"And – and – you know what else?" Alfred continued, with more distress and more projectiling of mouth contents, "You know – hey, have you been in the study yet? Get a load of that pile of paper in there. It's a fucking mountain! A fucking _mountain!_ You know, I'm like, their goddamn _country_, it's not like I'm actually _obligated_ to do anything like their paperwork for them, and what I _do_ is out of the goodness of my heart and to help save _their_ asses with my almighty skills, and here they are shoving all this work on me and taking advantage of my kindly soul and I'll feel bad if I _don't_ do it so I _have _to do it even though I _don't_ and…" He had barely been up for fifteen minutes and already he was working himself into a fit. Tony, with the tired air of one who had to cope with this erratic behavior on a daily basis, pushed the coffee closer to Alfred's hand and prodded him to drink. Alfred did so and then flopped forward onto the tabletop.

"Life sucks," he moaned piteously into the polished wood grain that his face had suddenly become very intimate with. "Life blows. Life sucks and life _blows,_ Tony, we've got a whole fellatio extravaganza going down over here, and it's not even hot, it just – it just – _sucks_." Banging on the table, he sprang up and shook his fist at the hanging light above. "_Why is this?_"

He looked to Tony for an answer, but the alien, having evidently had enough of his uncalled for complaining and moodiness, was now pattering away with the newspaper under his arm to read in peace.

Well. _Fine_.

Alfred drank sulkily. Why did everyone ditch him in times of distress? Lame. Totally lame.

Man. Couldn't someone cut him some slack for once? He'd just come home from what was practically a month-long business trip that was, to generalize it, pretty much unnecessary. Only halfway through throwing off the jet lag and already there was more to do than he could think about. Plus, it was winter. That was like the rainy day on top of a train wreck that just amplified everything and made it twenty times worse.

Life wasn't good after all. It wasn't even the least bit wonderful or illustrious. Life was just uncool.

"Life is just uncool," he said aloud for additional affirmation. The cold kitchen air seemed to agree with him. Alfred toasted their agreement with a painful chug of coffee.

It was so quiet.

Quietness was another thing that wasn't cool.

Instead, it was gross and uncomfortable, partially because the situations in which quietness occurred in were usually gross and uncomfortable. Awkward silences. Solemn occasions. Depressing things. Being alone. He hated it. Silence was something that shouldn't be allowed to happen – just like communism! And so he always stretched beyond his limits to combat it! If no one was going to talk, then damn it, he would. Maybe they'd act mad at him, but secretly, he bet they were relieved it had been him to break the silence. So self sacrificing, that was Alfred F. Jones. A regular vigilante superhero, or something! How awesome!

But there was no one to talk to right now. Just him, in an empty kitchen, holding an empty mug. If he didn't have Tony, then he'd be all alone…and right now Tony was nowhere to be found.

Damn it. Well, he wasn't going to just sit here and take it like a wuss. Might as well get some work done on the PC. Maybe one of the other nations would be online; Japan seemed like a safe bet.

Topping off on another cup of coffee (the fortification would be necessary, most probably) he journeyed into the study, grimaced at the paperwork piled up on the desk, and turned the computer on. Oh, technology, he thought while waiting for it to start up. Here was another fabulous piece of work developed by his very own kids. The U.S. was so badass.

Hm, where to begin? The hours of proofreading documents that lay before him dauntingly felt pretty unappealing at the moment. Should check his email first, he hadn't for a while…

Ha, email. Wasn't that another one of Russia's attacks? If memory served correctly, he'd definitely been asked for his personal email address a couple of weeks ago. If memory served correctly even further, he'd definitely defeated Russia at that play. Writing a negative on the paper and then giving it back to him as if he really _had_ written his address on it – ahaha! What cleverness. What wit. Ooh, watch out Russia, you gone' get burned by some mad _Jones-style dissin'_. He was really kind of pleased with himself.

A slew of new messages blinked up at him from the screen. One from England, asking what hotel he planned to be staying at for the January conference; whoops, old news. A handful from Japan, probably full of links to pictures of underage-looking cartoon girls. A lot from Iran and Cuba, packed with spam. Alfred wished exasperatedly that he could just bring himself to block their mail, but there was always that small possibility that they'd have something nice/flattering to say…oh, how he did wish.

Hm?

_Message subject:_ _[none]_

Sipping from his mug, he maneuvered the mouse, clicked, and then immediately spewed an appetizing mix of coffee and spit all over the screen.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Greetings! Did you know? Technically, this would be the first time I am writing to you in the new year. How very monumental! Internet mail sending certainly is efficient. To think that I am able to converse with you with the mere pressing of buttons, it is really very fantastic!_

_I hear tell that you are staying in London for an additional period of time to attend political meetings with your superior. Are you enjoying it? Unfortunately I have things to attend to here in my country and cannot return to visit you. I do hope you do not feel too sad without my company, since I assume you are probably alone there because very few people think of you kindly and most are likely to be avoiding you to spare themselves from a good deal of irritation._

_I wonder when you will read this message. I admit to feeling rather excited…it really does feel like we are taking the next step of our pen pals relationship together! Is your heart pounding like mine is at this very moment?_

_Elatedly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_How the FUCK did you get this email?_

* * *

Panting heavily from the exertion of hitting keyboard letters with enough force to level a parking ramp, Alfred wiped the monitor off with his sweatshirt sleeve.

Dear god, was nothing holy anymore?

This freak is taking over my life, he thought, his face contorting into various expressions of tragedy. Russia was walking all over him. Make him think he'd totally owned the guy last time. Then crush every fiber of triumph and joy he had into particles of dust. It was the same every time, but, oh, how _sad_ it was.

Damn it. Damn it. Ignore him, just ignore him! He wasn't about to be raped in the ear or anything weird just because Russia was emailing him. In fact, this new situation was pretty mild. Much less hands-on than snail mail. At least Russia wasn't _physically_ here, right? Even emails were better than, say, if he were _calling _him, or something—

The phone rang. Alfred shrieked and slopped more coffee over the monitor and over himself.

"…Y-yeah…?" he choked out apprehensively into the receiver.

Ominous static, and then…"Hey, Jones?"

Oh thank you Virgin Mary. His lungs expanded in a desperate intake of air as he allowed himself to breathe again. "Yeah, it's me."

"Great, you're up – hey, I know you don't have to be in-building today, but if you've been watching the weather we're in for some serious blizzarding and everyone's being sent home – but this portfolio, it has to be done by tomorrow, and you're the only one besides the boss who has the authority to take care of it, if you," the voice on the other end took on a conspiring tone, "if you _know_ what I _mean_… So hey, just pop on down here and pick these up so you can work on them, alright? Be fast, too, we're supposed to get like what, two feet?" A beep, and the call was over.

Alfred strangled the pitiable wireless phone in his hands. "Are you _kidding me?" _he yelled at it, and left a significant dent in the opposing wall as he chucked it as hard as he could. _Awesome. _Russia, more work, and more snow. Plus he was now a permanent carrier of the distinct aroma of hazelnut coffee. _Bullshit. Travesty._

"_Tony I am going out to tend to some asshatting,_" Alfred bellowed into the depths of the house (to which there was no reply), and, grabbing his keys and coat, slammed the front door behind him shut furiously.

Seventy-three minutes later, he was slamming the front door open just as – if not more – furiously, throwing the keys and coat on a lounge chair, bellowing, "_Tony I am back god damn this traffic and this coldness and this asshatting"_ (to which there was also no reply), and now throttling a thick packet of government legal-sized paper between his frigid fingers.

"_AGHH,_" he said loudly as he observed the heights that his pile of paperwork was reaching with the help of this new addition.

"_AGHHHH,_" he said even more loudly as he observed the new email sitting placidly in his inbox.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Oh, good morning! Or is it more around noon? It is evening here. I am visiting Latvia again at the present time. He is always so happy to see me, and I do feel rather guilty denying him my presence. On the subject of happiness, could you imagine my pleasure when I discovered a wonderful email from none other than you, dear America, had been sent to me! It was ever such a nice surprise. Really, I am just so flustered!_

_You ask how did I go about obtaining your email address? I merely asked China, of course. He is ever so helpful; he even gave me a discount! Such an agreeable fellow. I thought your little game was rather adorable, playing cat-and-mouse and not giving me your address outright, and I had planned to humor you, but…forgive me. I could not restrain these fond urges within myself that yearned to exchange writing with you. Pen pals, that is what we are, after all! My, even now my heart still skips a beat when mind touches upon the thought…I must conquer it quickly. I do not want my own emotions creating any uncomfortable feelings that would hinder our flowering bond. (I used what you would call a "pun" there, did you notice? Because you mentioned your hobby of gardening, and I used the word "flowering".)_

_I just read on the North American news updates that you are expecting a small flurry of snowfall? Do take care to keep yourself warm and well. Although, I am sure you will be fine. I have knowledge that succulent creatures such as whales get along well enough in freezing temperatures thanks to their thick layers of blubber, thus, you should have no worries!_

_Warmly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_I hate you._

* * *

Damn it all. He hadn't even been aware of the fact that China had known his email address. Thinking about it, it _did_ sound vaguely familiar… the two of them were on unusual terms at the moment, after all. Maybe he had shared it as a symbol of superficial goodwill.

But – but the bastard had _sold_ it to Russia. _God damn it._

Twenty minutes had passed and Alfred had gotten through approximately 1/5885ths of his workload before a reply arrived. He read it while chewing on his caffeinated sleeve timorously.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Latvia just said something very amusing! I will tell you…oh, but I am afraid translation into this ugly English would strip the joke from it quite thoroughly. I shall save it until a later time, then._

_Why must you be so aloof? I am doing my best to get along, but truly, it would be a fair deal easier if you would assist me. After all, did you not agree last time to apply yourself further into providing stimulating conversation? Do not think that just because we are not speaking face-to-face (though I do wish for it dearly, and I am sure you do as well, but, alas) these rules do not apply. My intention is not to be too commanding, nor to force anything from you. I realize that your weak and feeble brain is likely to be incapable of formulating continuous sentences, or even words exceeding one or two syllables. However, I do ask you to try; you have plenty of nearsighted American spirit and resolve to tap into, after all. All I desire is to be able to talk with you, and further our budding relationship. (That was also a gardening pun. Did you see it?)_

_Let our friendship grow! (There is another one for you. I hope I am not overdoing it. I am "on a roll". As you can see, I have been furthering my fluency in English idioms lately as well.)_

_Humorously,_

_Russia_

* * *

_HA HA HA HA RUSSIA YOU ARE JUST TOO FUNNY HA HA HA OH I AM LAUGHING SO MUCH AT YOUR FUNNY JOKES BECAUSE THEY ARE PRETTY FUNNY STOP EMAILING ME_

* * *

Alfred happened to be hitting his mug against the side of his head in order to keep himself focused on reading through a particularly boring list of agreement terms when, nine minutes later, a return message was delivered.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Oh my! You really found my little witticisms to be comedic? I am delighted! To be frank, I was a trifle embarrassed after hitting the send button…I thought maybe I should not have said them after all. But you seem to have appreciated them, and so I am very glad that I was able to offer you a moment of joviality!_

_Currently, I am polishing up the finished documents that were delegated to me by my superior. I am quite relieved they are over and done with, despite the fact that there was really not very much to do at all! My government is really quite efficient and I often do not have a terribly large amount of work to do. It is a lovely, blossoming feeling. (There is another one especially for you, since you liked my puns so much.)_

_Are you busy with your duties, as well? I somewhat doubt the idea. It is hard to imagine a frivolous fool like you doing paperwork. How paradoxical! _

_I wonder if Latvia will play a game with me._

_Lightheartedly,_

_Russia_

* * *

After striking his desk in a sudden burst of frustration and outrage, Alfred spent several minutes on the floor gathering up the files that he had sent flying everywhere.

Afterwards, he spent several more minutes glaring stonily at his monitor.

God damn it. Life _sucked._

What the hell did the bastard want? What the hell could he _possibly_ want? What, did he want Alfred to _complain_ about his life? Complain about how unfair it was? Was this what he was being goaded to do? Would Russia be satisfied then? Would he really?

Screw that shit.

* * *

_Why do you feel the need to fag up your emails and write it like it's a letter or something stupid?_

* * *

Only five minutes for a response.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_I invited Latvia to play __преферанс__ with me, but it turns out he does not own a deck of cards. So, while I personally do not find much enjoyment in console games, I consented for a game of something simple like __Шàрики or __Те__́__трис__. But either Latvia is not in possession of a game-playing system or he suddenly remembered something very important he had neglected to do, because he has run off somewhere. What a silly boy._

_I remember mentioning that I find letters much more personal and sentimental than modern things like email! I suppose what I am doing is merely in order to add a little bit of that written-letter nostalgia to this internet message? Does it displease you? I rather enjoy this feeling. It is as though our hearts are somehow closer, and I can speak directly to your soul. Quite a romantic way of putting it, do you not agree?_

_Tenderly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_That's really dumb._

_Dear Russia,_

_This is really dumb. Also can you not like tootle your weird Russian shit all over these defenseless English words. You are massacring them. Massacring my language with your nastyass letters. It's like fucking Chinese or something. All these lame shapes and lines that don't even make sense. Same shit._

_This is really really dumb,_

_America_

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Oh, now you are joining me! It is just as if we are writing letters to each other. This is so cute. I am really tremendously pleased._

_Of course, these emails are not to take the place of the mailed letters that we have been sending to each other previous to this. Not at all. You will be happy to hear that I am fully intent on continuing to uphold our postal correspondence! Each and every one of your letters have earned a dear, dear place within my heart, and the connection that we began through the mail is simply…irreplaceable. Writing letters to you is special, and we must continue it. Perhaps it can become a personal tradition, just between the two of us! Is that not just a terribly adorable notion?_

_Also, I apologize. At the moment of writing I could not recall the English terms for those particular games that I mentioned. It is rather bold of you to state that Russian letters are unattractive, however, when every fiber of your very own abhorrent English drips with disdain for the realm of written word. The language does not even belong to you. _

_Amusedly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_Dear Russia,_

_Your letters will be sent on a one-way trip into my paper shredder. Don't waste. GO GREEN._

_(INSTEAD OF RED.)_

_(Who's making puns now, prick?)_

_NOT AMUSED,_

_America_

* * *

_Dear America,_

_You really must stop with this droll discriminative attitude of yours. I am currently not even a socialist country; my full title, asinine little Mr. United States of America, is the Russian Federation. I digress, you really are too adorable at whatever it is you do or say, but you must impose a stricter hold on yourself! It would be simply heartbreaking to me if I had to witness you stumbling into trouble because of this flaw. Please, do be careful._

_Did you know that December 30__th__ was my birthday? I forgot to mention it, how silly of me! I was so very excited to be confronting you in person, and being able to celebrate my Christmas quietly together with you, that it just slipped my mind._

_Chastisingly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_Dear Russia,_

_I don't care._

_And that's not a word,_

_America_

* * *

_Dear America,_

_My, my, so you noticed it. In hindsight, I admit it was slightly rash of me to assume that your low IQ would be unable to identify my purposeful word mistakes, although I can hardly be blamed for this since you do exhibit true dimness at every hour of day._

_Here is an interesting fact! Over the years, I have mentally adapted to associating the word "mistake" with "America". It is very funny. Do you not think so?_

_Jestingly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_Why do you hate me so much?_

* * *

Ivan exhaled and slapped his laptop shut.

Oh, America.

So cute. So whimsical. But he was terribly, _terribly_ tiring sometimes.

He stretched and wandered out of the guest room. Rather, it was actually _his_ room, as he had taken to paying friendly visits to his former Union friends quite often. Partially to see how they were doing, and partially to keep them on their toes – mostly, it was because the other countries liked it when he visited, _ever_ so much. Latvia was a prime example! Practically trembling with joy at his every word, just like the old days. He wouldn't stand to see his old comrades unhappy, and so, he would occasionally grant them grace by dropping in unannounced. It was good for them, he thought, now that they were independent. It would help build character.

Although it didn't seem to be helping build much else, was it? Just look at his smallest Baltic. Still as tiny as ever, and his house? Similarly miniscule. Ivan felt a little out of place in here. It was cramped. Unwelcoming. He pulled at his scarf – somewhat of a habit – and stopped to inspect it when he came to rest next to a wall lamp.

Such an unsightly little stain. The wine spill from that restaurant visit had left its mark, marring the perfect soft surface of the wool-stitched fabric. No matter how much he tried, it just would not come out. It really was a shame. Maybe Latvia had some cleaning supplies lying around, and he would try again.

"Latvia?" he called searchingly. "Little Latvia?" Hmmm, was he hiding? Looking for people could be such a bore, and Ivan really didn't feel particularly inclined to do so. Giving up his scarfly endeavors for the moment, he went out for a walk instead.

Upon returning, the house was still quiet.

"I will choose to let you win this round for now, Latvia… We can play again later, if you would like!"

Not a peep was heard. Latvia must really be enjoying his little game! Forever doomed to be a child, was he? Chortling to himself, Ivan returned to his room and closed the door (leaving it unlocked, of course, in case the little nation began to feel lonesome for his company), turning his attention to the laptop on his bed.

Now then…

The bit of exercise had done well to raise his mood once again. Time to resume this fun little chat that he and America were having together. Yes, a "little chat"… that was such a darling way to put it. He decided he liked it quite a lot! It was awfully cozy-sounding.

America's last message still lay boldly on the screen; then, with the mouse pointer hovering over _удалить,_ it was deleted.

Very well, Russia pondered, what should he say? It was getting later into the night and inspiration was becoming harder to come by. Then again, as long as it was from the core of his heart, America was sure to treasure whatever he might come to say! The thought was reassuring. Russia smiled at the keyboard and began to type.

* * *

It had been slightly over an hour and a half since he had sent Russia that last email, and Alfred was starting to get a little antsy. Not of the eagerness or insect variety, but more of the Oh god he is planning something why is he taking so long what is he doing oh god I bet he is off sharpening his scalpels on babies' buttocks before coming for my blood or something equally horrible variety.

And of course fate wouldn't be pleased if he had gotten a good chunk of work done during this stretch of time, because that would have meant that some part of his life was running smoothly. Acting accordingly, Alfred had made close to no progress.

This sucked.

Naturally, at the exact moment that this thought flickered through his mind, a new message from Russia came to call.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_I do adore these little chats of ours! ("Little chats". Does that not sound absolutely, tenderly sweet?)_

_America, do you have any favorite animals? I remember that you were not too affectionate regarding turtles, but perhaps you have changed your mind?_

_Endearingly,_

_Russia_

* * *

_Dear Russia,_

_No. _

_Die,_

_America_

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Are you certain that turtles are not one of your favorite animals?_

Alfred blocked his email.


	7. Chapter 7

from russia, with love

* * *

Alfred was sulking.

"Valentine's Day is bullshit," he informed Tony venomously, who silently handed him a packet of gardenia seeds to place into the box labeled _GARDEN CRAP_ in black marker. "It's total bullshit."

It _was_ bullshit. What was so great about Valentine's Day, anyway? Just a chance to waste money and show off your skanky girlfriend to the masses before she broke up with you two weeks later. How dumb. And it wasn't like he was _sour, _or _jealous_, or anything. Definitely not.

"I'm not," Alfred told Tony. "I'm not sour or jealous or anything. I'm definitely not. It's just stupid, isn't it? All these douchebags thinking they're all cool because they're not single. Isn't it? _Isn't it_?"

Sensing a reply was required, Tony nodded without too much enthusiasm, still digging away into the dusty crate on the floor between them. It was enough to serve as pacification, however.

"_Yeah. _ It's so totally stupid. I mean. Yeah. What the hell. Valentine's Day is so overrated. What a dumb holiday—Hey, I haven't seen a Walkman for years… there's no batteries, does this work?" Tony scanned the cassette player held up to him with a quizzical glance, then shook his head. Alfred tossed it into the box labeled _USELESS CRAP._

They were cleaning up and organizing a few crates of miscellany dragged out from the storage room, the reason being that it was Valentine's Day, and Alfred was kind of Valentine-less. Not that it had anything to do with_ him,_ of course! After all, he was just so incredibly desirable, what with his ruggedly handsome face and sculpted body and great personality and ability to lift up trucks with his pinky finger regardless of whether it was broken and trapped between the jaws of a shark and all. Like seriously._ So. Hot._ No, he was _totally _dateable – it was just other factors to blame, like work. There was no time to fool around and mingle with the multitude of attractive, busty ladies wearing naught but two dimes and a nickel these days. And, he hadn't really been keeping up his connections with his citizens for a few years now, so there weren't any windows of opportunity to climb through as he pleased in any case. What a shame, what a shame.

And thus, this singledom was obviously a bad-mood trigger, and in a wild attempt to combat the feeling of self-pity that was threatening to take over him, Alfred had decided to occupy himself by doing a little tidying. Not the storage room itself, of course. It had been roughly seventy-or-so years since he'd really ventured in there for more than the few seconds needed to lob something new inside. There was still plenty of bullshittery floating around alongside the dust motes in that room that he would rather not think about for maybe a few dozen decades or so more. But the boxes and crates of random things inside the room had been accumulating and accumulating, and Tony seemed to believe (for some unexplained reason) that the wooden floor underneath the pile was in danger of giving way, thus he had chosen to make himself feel better by being busy sorting a handful of stored things out in the hallway. Tony was a pretty valuable asset to the process; he seemed to have a knack for identifying whether old electronics and stuff worked or not.

Still, his mood was far from improved. "Stupid Valentine's Day," he growled with large dollops of savagery at an ugly puce lampshade as it sailed mournfully into the _USELESS CRAP_ box. How did all of these things end up in his house, anyway? The lampshade was followed by a splintered glass paperweight and several unopened tubes of paint. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Tony began to pick the poor condemned paints back out of the box in disapproval – well, _excuse him_ for _wasting._

An Oxford dictionary was revealed underneath a hemp cloth dyed in psychedelic colors. Alfred's irritation flared as he threw it out, telling Tony, "Leave the damn thing in there," though he hadn't shown any signs of being inclined to removing it. _Agh_. And he'd gone through all the trouble of carrying the crates _out_ of the storage room because one of the things he didn't want to think about was England, too.

Stupid England, Alfred thought darkly, _he _was probably frolicking around with his fairy girlfriends in some enchanted castle bullshit at that very moment! Better than him being here, at least, it was always a pissoff to see how his American daughters were practically collapsing all over themselves fawning over England's limey accent. And France. France was even worse. If he was juggling twelve dates at a time on a normal day, well, Valentine's Day was probably through-the-roof absurd. As if that wasn't bad enough, France always felt the need to _brag_ about it incessantly, and talk about where they had _gone_, and how much _fun _it had been, and what state the _bed_ had been in afterwards, and that he had _pictures_ if anyone wanted to see—!

The old iron spade that had been halfway on its journey into the _GARDEN CRAP_ box crumpled like rice paper in his hands. Whoops. Tony shook his head at him.

Alfred sulked.

He wasn't jealous, and he wasn't sour, and he wasn't bitter. It wasn't like there was anything _wrong_ or _lame_ about spending Valentine's Day alone, or any other day, really. It _was_ a huge cold bigass house, and it _was_ hugely, coldly, bigassly empty ninety-nine percent of the time, but that was no big deal. He wasn't _lonely._ "I'm not lonely," he notified Tony, who patted him comfortingly on the arm before continuing to ignore him. Yeah. How could he be lonely? He had Tony, after all. Even if Tony was a space alien who paid him no attention for the most part and had been limiting his caloric intake as of late (how _cruel_) and was prone to long periods of disappearing into the depths of the house to engage in hehadnoideawhat.

But, he thought reluctantly to himself, it might be a nice change to actually hold a _conversation_ in the house for once, you know, one where the other party actually _responded._ He'd never admit who he might consider as the "other party" though – well, it wasn't like they were on bad terms or anything, pretty good actually, but there was always that underlying awkwardness, that hovering melancholy about their old relations that they gaily pretended had never happened but it was still there, and you know what why was he even thinking about this, the whole purpose of what he and Tony were doing at the very moment was to _not_ think about it, and _augh look_ he was thinking about it more _damn damn damn damn damn damn everything!_

Someone chose that moment to ring the doorbell. Alfred's heart skipped a beat as he got to his feet. His mind did the math with surprising speed. It couldn't be that someone was paying him a _Valentine's Day-related_ visit? A secret admirer, maybe? Maybe Canada had decided to drop by? Maybe – a spitefully satisfied smirk tugged at his lips – maybe it was _England_, here to mope about how _dateless_ and _unpopular_ he was, or maybe it was even _France?_ Come running to Alfred feeling all sorry for themselves, were they? Well, maybe he'd _consider_ comforting them, _consider_ assuring them that, hey, there was nothing wrong with being single, there was no need to get worked up about it, after all, just look at _him,_ he _chose_ to be alone, and was all the better for it… grinning, he unlocked and opened the door. A delivery man asked him to sign for a package.

Oh.

He was somewhat disappointed.

After the man had wished him a Happy Valentine's Day before leaving (he suspected that his facial expression may have changed for the worse, judging by the sudden burst of speed in the delivery man's retreat) Alfred shut the door and weighed the package in his hands. It was kind of heavy. He didn't remember ordering anything, though…

Before he had a chance to open it, Tony had plucked the package from his hands and was vanishing with it.

Uh. Okay.

The doorbell rang again. Confused, Alfred turned to open the door a second time. Had the delivery man forgotten something…?

"Dobroye utro, Amerika," greeted Russia, standing on his doorstep as if he had every right to be there.

"Oh, fuck," said Alfred.

His mind did the math with even faster speed. It was Valentine's Day. Russia was on his doormat. Uhhhh. Definitely didn't look like a good sum so far.

"…Are you going to ask me on a date or something?" he asked bracingly, figuring he might as well get the worst over with as soon as possible.

Russia looked surprised. "Nyet."

Plastic rustled, and Alfred looked down to see that the man was porting two bags filled with mysterious and brightly colored somethingorothers. Oh no. Those couldn't be…

"Are those supposed to be Valentines for me or something?"

Russia looked more surprised. "Nyet. I am very sorry – did you want one?"

Well, he was all out of ideas, and now he felt like a moron, to boot.

"Then _why _the _hell_ are you _here?_"

"Well, I desired some assistance with this little project of mine, and after some careful pondering I deducted that the one country that would be _least_ occupied on this particular day would be you!"

By the time that Alfred had figured out that this was probably an insult, Russia had already invited himself into his house. "Hey – _hey!_ I didn't say you could come in, what the hell do you think you're doing—"

"Now, now, _Amerika_," Russia cooed mollifyingly, and Alfred cringed at the sound, "This is all very harsh of you to say, especially after you rashly make assumptions of why I am being here. Such an ego you possess! Besides, I know you would not have left me standing outside of your home."

Alfred begged to differ. "I beg to differ," he retorted snootily, and commenced his attempt to push Russia back out the front door, which turned out to be really kind of hard and/or impossible because the guy was so damn huge and his strength that day was not too great, possibly on account of the fact that a large majority of his population was currently destroying their bloodstreams with a rush of preservative-soaked chocolate, and just because he was in such a bad mood.

"Oh, hello," said Russia to someone else. Alfred ceased his vain efforts and turned to see that Tony had returned (packageless, by the way). The alien was giving Russia his "once-over" stare, which really just resembled all of his other stares but Alfred could tell that it was his "once-over" stare so no contradictory opinions were allowed. Russia was giving him an "oh how interesting" stare in return.

"So the rumor is true that you play host to an extra-terrestrial being. How very fascinating! Does your government know of this?"

Alfred gave Russia his best "can you not come waltzing into my house like you're actually welcome and ogle my friends and ask stupid questions and act like you have no idea that I am just this close to roundhousing it right in your balls please sir" stare and didn't reply.

Russia didn't seem to mind. "I do not plan on calling any public attention towards this matter, however, so have no worries!" Tony didn't seem to mind either, and had come to stand in front of him, directing his stare at the Russian's scarf. He reached out a small gray hand before having the scarf quickly snatched out of his range.

"Please, I would prefer that you refrain from touching this," Russia said, smiling, and Tony looked at him blankly before pattering away.

Alfred cracked his knuckles. Russia turned his smile towards him instead.

"Go home," Alfred told him bluntly.

"Nyet, I think not."

"Why."

Russia looked thoughtful. "Well, you see, dear America, what kind of image would it present if there were, for example, _news_ amongst the media that a foreign diplomat had been coldly turned away from the house of an American government official? I daresay your superior would not be very pleased about the negative public attention. _And_, that besides, who could tell what varieties of mischief I may find myself in if allowed to wander your capital unchecked?"

Oho. Blackmail. _Blackmail._ So he was taking this to next step, was he? No longer personal threats, no longer intimidation, but political _blackmail._ How forward. How smarmy. How forwardly _smarmy. _ Well, if Russia had decided to go down _that_ road, then he would be shocked to discover that Alfred was quite, _quite_ ready to…

…Comply.

Oh, sadness. What choice did he have? He didn't. _There were no choices_. There was only sadness.

"What were you in the midst of undergoing here, incidentally?" asked Russia, looking around at the various crates and boxes and nudging a basket labeled _BOOK CRAP_ with his foot.

Alfred kicked it out of the way. "Cleaning shit. None of your _business_. Now what do you want."

Russia brightened. "Oh, that is right!" He lifted one of his plastic bags. "You see, it is Valentine's Day…"

"Uh huh," replied Alfred apprehensively, feeling his palms begin to sweat. Okay, so it was definitely about Valentine's Day. _So far no good._

"…And, that is – in actuality, now that it crosses my mind, this should be (oh, here comes an idiom, if you will notice) _right up your alley_, America!"

Oh, god. Was it going to be something perverted? It was definitely something perverted. It definitely was. Who says "right up your alley" in that tone of voice when whatever the hell they were talking about wasn't perverted? No one does. Oh Lord Almighty.

"See, it is this," said Russia impressively, and pulled out a sheet of delicate, lacy paper.

Delicate, lacy paper.

"Cool, Russia." Alfred paused for added effect. "_Cool._"

Russia giggled. "No, no! This is merely the medium! I wish for your assistance in the making of some paper flowers, that is what I have come here for!"

"Flowers."

"Da, flowers. You should be capable of providing a significant amount of help in this area, am I wrong?" He nodded in the direction of the _GARDEN CRAP_ box.

Flowers. Paper flowers.

What the fuck?

"Are you serious?"

"It is a rare occasion when I am not serious, dear America!" (Alfred didn't say anything, but that line was definitely jam packed with bullshit.)

"…Why?"

Cheerfully, Russia replied, "Well, it is for Valentine's Day, of course!"

Uh, okay. So Russia had suddenly decided to fly in, completely out of the blue, from Moscow to Washington D.C., pretty much half the globe away, to get Alfred to make paper flowers with him. Alright. That was chill. Totally normal. Totally beat.

What the _fuck?_

But it definitely wasn't as…_bad_ as he had feared. And Russia was right, he really _couldn't_ kick him out of the house, because if those paparazzi hawks that were always on the lookout for government folly got wind of the situation – and somehow, they always, _always_ did – there would be trouble. Yeah, this really wasn't that bad. All he had to do was make some gay little flowers with the guy and then he would go home, right? Providing Alfred would survive the passage of time that they were together. Providing.

He sighed. "Fine. Bring it in here," and without a backwards glance he strode into the sitting room just off their hallway and plonked himself down on one of the couches surrounding the coffee table. Almost immediately he was reconsidering the wiseness of his decision, because that freak Russia had followed him right into the room and had situated himself, _in an extremely unnecessary fashion_, right next to Alfred. _Right_ next to Alfred. As in, _close_. Super close. Close as in Why hello there Russia's thigh, how nice of you to be pressing all up against _my_ thigh, this is _ever_ so cozy and fine!

"You know, there are other places to sit, Russia," he pointed out, not bothering to conceal the abhorrence in his voice.

Russia acknowledged the other places to sit, ho-humming, "Yes, I see them, they are quite nice," and clearly not taking the hint. He removed his coat, placing it on the empty couch space next to him (yes, the _empty _couch space that Russia was _free to sit on,_ instead of squeezing over _here _for _no reason _except to be a _freak_), and watched amusedly while Alfred shifted away as much as he possibly could and pretended to slit his wrists multiple times. Cut cut cut cut cut.

"Anyways, allow me to demonstrate the activity we are about to undertake!" Pulling several sheets of the high-quality, delicate paper out from a bag, Russia set them onto the table and removed a pair of scissors and scalpel from his coat pocket (Alfred flinched). "I admit, I am really not very much skilled at this art – I certainly lack the experience, that, say, Mr. Austria possesses – but the idea is to create intricate yet simple stemmed flowers from multiple colors of paper without the use of adhesives to keep them together. It is all folding and cutwork, you see?" Carefully, he sliced away at a blue sheet, then a green, before obscuring them between his large hands and twisting them in a rather violating fashion. The finished product was held out for approval. "And that is that."

Alfred scowled at it. He didn't want to say it, but the flower actually _did_ look nice. It takes a fruit to make a fruit, his mind sneered, despite the fact that fruit really had nothing to do with the equation at all.

"…Blue rose," he said grudgingly. Russia beamed at him.

"That is correct! And I was thinking your stupid brain might not be able to identify it after all. So, do you believe you are capable of following my example?"

Instead of replying, Alfred took the scalpel from Russia's hands (he let himself breathe a sigh of relief then, because the situation was _much_ less taxing on his nerve cells when Russia had less of an access to weaponry. Although he did still have the scissors, and there was plenty of disaster to be initiated with that alone) and hacked away at a different sheet of paper. He jammed the scraps together and then threw it the Russian. "Carnation," he muttered sourly.

Russia regarded it with cheerful fascination. "How impressive of you to try for an entirely different kind of flower! If I am squinting I am just barely able to make it out for what it is. It is a rather unattractive carnation, but I expected no more from you; this is quite satisfactory for now!"

"You're an ass."

Giggling, Russia countered, "Nyet, I think not, that is an entirely different genus from me! How silly! Now, let us continue with this. There are many colors to choose from, so no need to hold back!"

Alfred chewed the inside of his mouth with stifling displeasure and stabbed another sheet of paper angrily with Russia's scalpel. Halfway through making another, and much worse, carnation, he asked, "Really, _why_ are you here again? _Why_ did it have to be me who helps you?"

"America, Amerika, you are _ever_ so narcissistic! Why do you continuously choose to believe that you are so special to be singled out? In all honesty, I had hoped dear old Mr. Yao Wang would be available to make these together with me – he is really capable of _so_ much better than you have demonstrated thus far, I promise you – but as luck would have it, this year's Lunar New Year seems to have fallen on the same day as that of Saint Valentine's, and so he was rather preoccupied, understandably."

Making grotesque faces at Russia, who was absorbed in folding a stem and seemed to be paying no mind, Alfred decided he would just make all of the flowers as terribly as possible and ruin all of Russia's plans and aspirations. That should show him.

Were plans and aspirations even involved in this, or was this whole kaboodle just being acted out on a whim? "Why are you making these again?"

"For Valentine's Day, as I have said! Really, America, you must work on your attentiveness. All these questions, really, goodness me."

"Uh, yeah, but like. Are they actually _for_ anything? Are they _for_ someone?" Oh, geez. Could this be some roundabout way for Russia to claim later on that they had spent Valentine's Day together? Was he going to be presented with a bouquet of paper flowers at the end of all this as some sort of pathetic wooing attempt? Oh man, please, _please_ don't say they're for me, Alfred prayed, while his body confusedly wondered whether it should be feeling nervous or not.

Russia didn't say anything at all at first, but his thigh _did_ decide to close the distance Alfred had painstakingly put between them earlier and made itself comfortable and snug next to his again. Okay, definitely a cause to be nervous about.

"…America," said Russia finally, sounding as if he were searching for the right words, "Do you—well, maybe that is not the correct way to imply my meaning; should I bother to dumb this down for you…?"

Alfred tried to scoot away but it looked like, short of getting up and switching to another couch completely, his leg and Russia's leg were going to be temporary homies for a good while longer. In trepidation he played his fingers along the laceless edge of a trimmed strip of half-red, half-white paper meant to become another rose.

And then, "Do you have any impossible love, Amerika?"

Alfred's finger slipped and papercut itself.

His initial reaction was to feel gross and shout something loudly along the lines of, Well if _you_ and _me_ together isn't impossible, I don't know _what_ is, you creepy creeper person whose leg is way way _way_ too familiar with mine at the moment and needs to go away ASAP, but then, as the words really sunk in and the painful emptiness that was apparent even with the awkward phrasing of "impossible love" being what it was, an image flickered in the back of his mind, and he saw the glare of a pair of warm green eyes, framed with eyebrows much too thick to be normal, and an open hand, reaching down to him with fingers splayed welcomingly—

"No," Alfred said, and he finished making the rose, which turned out looking much uglier than he had intended.

"I see," replied Russia, looking at the ugly rose with a smile that suggested he had heard through the lie, but since Alfred's gaze was angled significantly in the opposite direction, it wasn't seen. Then, after a pause, "I cannot say I am the same."

Oh boy. "Yeah?"

"…Da." His words were hesitant, as if he weren't sure or hadn't planned to be divulging this information, but then, foregoing his reservations, Russia went on with, "…My ses—rather, my – my sisters…"

Okay, Alfred hadn't heard his name in there anywhere yet. That was a good sign. He chose to take advantage of the sudden calm by cutting out some unattractive leaves. "Your sisters, I think I've met them?"

"Yes," Russia said, _quietly_ for the first time, and he held a thin blue flower detailed with many small buds up to the light to see it better, "Natalia is very…_beautiful_, I suppose is an appropriate word. You have met her in the past decade, I believe."

"Uh, not in a good way." Belarus had definitely not appreciated his helpful suggestions in her own affairs, at any rate. Well, it was her loss.

"I assume not. My own relationship with her is, how would you say…strained? Even _without _the political disputes, and—there are many…"

"Uh-huh." Alfred wasn't sure why he was being told about this. Then again, for once the words coming out of the Russian's mouth weren't comprised mainly of weird faggotry or foreign mush or extremely disconcerting good-mood harassment, so maybe it was a nice change.

"Natalia believes she is in love with me."

Whoa, _plot twist_.

"She is aggressive about her beliefs, and she does not realize she is mistaken about her feelings. But, I cannot tell her otherwise. I cannot hurt her in that way, because will refuse to understand… and thus, you see, that does give reason for tensions between us to be thick." Russia beamed at Alfred, who frowned and ruined another crude flower. "Although, really, it is not as dramatic a problem as it sounds. And, the eldest among us, Ukraine—"

For some reason inexplicable to himself, that one word from Russia bothered him more than it should have, and for an even more inexplicable reason, Alfred felt like he had to cut in, even though it was really none of his concern and he honestly didn't even care, but it was just _wrong_, "Hold on."

"Da, Amerika?"

"You…" Alfred stopped, and then asked, discomfitingly, "You call your sister Ukraine?"

The other was silent, and Alfred turned his head to see that Russia was studying his face carefully and thoughtfully.

"Let it be said, Amerika, that I love my sisters dearly."

"But…" But you called her Ukraine, Alfred thought, her country _title_, not her name, and he realized that it bothered him because thinking about "impossible love" had reminded him of his past life with England, and how they both harbored those nostalgically painful memories despite their outwards joviality towards each other, and how, despite having "made up" with each other more than a century ago, there would always be that rift, that wall, that _boundary_, and how the two of them could never – never be… well, it didn't matter. He didn't want to think about it. Regardless, they still called each other by their damn _names._ But maybe that was because to _not_ do so would be the real "bad" action here?

"I love them dearly, _more_ than dearly. My elder sister, perhaps, most of all. But it is politics, Amerika, it is _history,_ it is always politics and history, because we are countries, and politics and history is the platform of our lives. Without them, we are nothing. And yet, because of them, it is written in history that I have done terrible things to my sisters. Terrible things to Ukraine. There is nothing that… well, I am Russia to her now. And she is Ukraine to me. The issue at hand is, to use an inelegant word, _awkwardness_, Amerika, and I am sure you know that meaning of that one since it summarizes your daily life to the letter!"

The jibe and the way too many _Amerikas_ failed to irritate Alfred as much as they really should have, and it was mostly because Alfred was too busy feeling odd and unsettled at the fact that he could understand everything Russia was saying, that he _knew_, firsthand, what Russia was talking about, and he didn't like it at all. "So," he mumbled, wanting the topic to end already, "So these flowers are for them?"

Russia smiled, and it seemed like the mood was settling back into its normal state. "Indeed so. A Valentine's Day gift. It _is_ a global holiday, after all."

"…Valentine's Day is a stupid holiday."

"Oh?"

"…It is. It's just a gay, expensive, commercialized event that makes it seem like people are obligated to show their shady feelings for each other and waste money so that the fancy restaurants and candy-making companies can be merry and prosper and the population can ruin their teeth and get diabetes and get stabbed after their boyfriend finds out they've been sleeping with their car-pooling buddies or some shit."

Humming, Russia replied, "Well, I think differently! Perhaps it is more of a day of opportunity? Presenting a chance for those less sure of themselves or those with less bravery to find the courage to express their affections, giving them a reason to pin their actions on in order to ward off the embarrassment that such actions might bring about on a normal day? What thoughts have you to voice about that?"

"You sure like hearing yourself talk."

"Well, as luck would have it, America, I could say the same about you myself, and—Why, hello, again."

Tony had apparently, at some point or another, arrived in the sitting room and had come to stand oppositely on the other side of the coffee table, regarding the two of them (and the nonexistent distance between them) with a blank interest. His eyes now rested calmly on the Russian's face.

"Yes?" the Russian's face asked.

Tony stared at him. Russia gave him a puzzled smile then turned to Alfred for help. (It should be mentioned, by the way, that their faces were just about a foot apart, which equated to approximately 12 American inches, which was really kind of _not a lot_ of space at all, which was also really kind of _waaaay_ infringing upon the borders of his personal bubble and thank god the man's shoulders were so enormously broad because if they were any closer Alfred would probably be breathing thick Russian neck instead of air comprised mainly of oxygen and lesser compounds such as CO2 and floating lint.)

"He wants to know if you want anything to drink," Alfred translated with displeasure, and muttered, quite loudly and obviously, to Tony, "It's not like he's a _guest_ or anything, you know, he doesn't have to be served _refreshments_, and I don't want him to think that he's actually _welcome_ here…"

Tony shook his head at him and looked back at Russia, small gray hand gesturing for him to make a decision. "I would enjoy a cup of tea, then, if it is not too much of a hassle."

Alfred quickly interrupted, "Uh, no, we don't _keep_ any tea in the house, it's like way disgusting and lame, and anyway, who would drink sissy shit like that besides Arthur, how stupid, coffee is all we've got –" but Tony had already begun to make his way back to the kitchen. "Give him _motor oil_, Tony," Alfred called desperately in the direction of the doorway, "He's Russian, all he needs is goddamn _motor oil!"_

"What a polite alien," commented Russia serenely. "Though I fear the same does not apply to you! I am very sorry."

Alfred gave him the finger, but it went by unnoticed. "Look, I have made that flower," Russia said, showing him a pink bloom and pointing to the painting on the opposite wall. "What is it?"

"Dunno. Morning glory or something equally gay."

"It is a good piece. Was it painted by your hands? I noticed there are some canvases stacked over there."

There were? Well, whatever. "No I didn't. Hey, when are you going to go home?"

"When we finish, naturally!"

"Well that's great." Yeah, awesome. There were only about _five thousand_ sheets of paper left. There was also a limit to how many ugly flowers he could make in a given amount of time. Like, Jesus, _really?_

A clattering was heard from the hallway and Tony materialized, tottering towards them and supporting a tray laden with two mugs. One was coffee, the other—

Damn it, god _damn_ it, Tony, Alfred cursed and hoped that his rage was being projected from his eyeballs at some outerworldly wavelength and could melt through the alien's skull (if he had one). He _told_ him they had no tea, he fucking said it out loud all obviously that they had _no tea_, and the stupid creature had to find the god damn _tea_ that he especially went through the god damn _trouble _of hiding all subtly in that drawer underneath the oven just in case…just in case…oh god damn it that was definitely blood rushing to his ears and now they were probably all red damn it damn it damn it.

_Fucking England._

Russia's gaze slid from the mug of tea set before him to Alfred's face, and _god damn the bastard _at least he knew what was good for him because he didn't make a comment or anything but just smiled his stupid little smile damn it all why did Alfred have to make such a scene about the tea earlier, man, way to make a _fool _of himself.

_Might as well change the topic really quickly ha ha ha._ "So how much of this girly flower shit are you supposed to be making?"

"Oh, however many is enough!" Russia replied airily, and took a long, slow, and (in Alfred's opinion) _pointed_ sip of the tea while giving him (in Alfred's opinion) a sneaky, evil, conniving sidelong glance.

_Ugh_. "You know, normally people just give each something like chocolate or cards or _real_ flowers on Valentine's Day."

"Real flowers die."

…That was true. He made a small _hmph_ of assent and met Tony's eyes briefly before the alien wandered away again. What _did_ he do when he wasn't with Alfred, anyway? "Paper flowers are still kind of a stupid idea. I mean, who does that, seriously."

"Flowers are an important thing, America. I am no expert, but I know _this_, at the very least!"

"If they're so important, I'd say real flowers kick fake flowers' asses any day. But whatever, man. Do your sisters have any favorite flowers, why don't you make those?" When the other said nothing, he noted, "Hey, there's no yellow paper here."

Russia smiled wryly – the least creepy smile Alfred had ever seen from him so far. Maybe he should take a picture. But then again, he didn't really want any photographic evidence that Russia's face had ever existed, especially not in his house. "Amerika, dorogaya moya, you are promisingly amusing. Ya ne panimayu vas; pachyom ya znayu, really!"

"Uh, what?"

"Pay no mind," Russia said, letting his words hang enigmatically in the air before unwinding his scarf and letting it drape itself carefully into his lap. "Favorite flowers, indeed... I think I have not yet earned that privilege yet. To be so bold…"

Alfred wondered what the hell Russia was babbling about, but to be honest, he didn't care enough to actually ask about it.

"Did you know, America? My elder sister gave me this scarf, very long ago. When we were children."

What was this, a ploy to get him to look at his crotch area? "Yeah, good for you." Alfred actually chanced a peek then. Okay, no disasters had come about of his quick crotch-glance. All clear, captain. "It's dirty."

And then Russia was back to his weird, gross, giggly self. Alfred could tell because he was treated to a weird and gross giggle. "But the fault for that lies with _you,_ America."

Oh, was that the wine stain from before? That had definitely not been his fault. How was Alfred supposed to be responsible for the fact that Russia's giant hulk hands had no sense of delicacy in the handling of fragile glass objects? Did he want Alfred to, what, apologize or something? Yeah, okay, _no._

"It definitely doesn't look that old."

"Pardon?"

"It doesn't look that old. Your scarf, I mean." The wool was a bit loose and frayed, some areas had small, widening gaps, and there was, of course, the wine stain, but the thing definitely didn't resemble an artifact from however many centuries ago when Russia was slightly less huge than he was now.

Russia was looking down at his scarf in a way that seemed like he had never noticed the fact before.

Well, Alfred didn't feel like involving himself in whatever melodrama the Russian and his family was acting out any more than he already had. He had plenty of his own worries to be concerned about, thank you very much, the most immediate of which being to get this stupid flower garbage done and over with so Russia would detach his femur and patella from Alfred's own extremities and go home, for Christ's sake.

Speaking of which. "…Did you seriously fly all the way across the world just to make flowers in my house?" More ridiculousness surfaced in his mind. "…Won't Valentine's Day be over by the time you go back, anyway?"

Beaming, Russia said, "Oh, but I did not say I had _flown_ here, dear America!"

Oh sweet and lovely Jesus, Russia could _teleport._ That would kind of maybe definitely prove to be a problem in the near future.

Russia's eyes had brightened as soon as the words "dear America" had left his mouth. "That does remind me! Are you enjoying our emailed conversations as much as I myself am? It is _ever_ so fun!"

Alfred groaned. Great. He had almost forgotten about that too, having not used his computer for the past few days in a combination of focusing mainly on tangible paperwork and ignoring Russia.

"I do worry about the emails I send, however. Are you getting all of them? I know sometimes you fail to respond to my messages, and so I thought maybe there was something wrong on my own end, thus I have been creating new email addresses in hopes that some will get through to you! It is working, I believe? You have replied to a few, as I recall! I wonder why some are not reaching you?"

"That's because I'm _blocking_ you."

"Oh, America. You are so cute!"

Alfred groaned again as Russia giggled, and another grueling, agonizing, sickly hour and forty-five minutes passed in roughly the same stride.

And then…

They were _done._

_DONE._

_Oh Hallelujah thank Jesus everybody. _

"_Thank Jesus_," Alfred praised with much emotion, "_Thank Jesus because we are done oh my god!_"

"You are quite the funny fellow," Russia complimented him, and Alfred whirled around and pointed a very sliced up and paper-ravaged finger in his face, which he was now able to do with his arm _fully outstretched_ because he and Russia were no longer _sitting together, _oho, _no they were not _no sir, as a matter of fact, there was quite a bit of space between them now and it was pretty _wonderful._

"Silence, _milk scum_," Alfred ordered him mightily, "Your flower shit is _done_. Your reason being here is _done_. Your threats are now _void_, sir, I have fulfilled the ends of our non-consensual bilateral contract pretty well in my opinion and now I demand that you _leave_ and do whatever you need to do, be it teleportation or whateverthefuck and go back to your own damn country!"

Russia applauded appreciatively. "That was quite the vocabulary you just demonstrated! I am very impressed, though I suspect you are probably just parroting words you have heard and do not actually grasp their meaning!"

"Silence, _milk scum_."

"Yes, yes," said Russia, carefully gathering up the pile of paper flowers into his bags and winding the scarf around his neck once again. "You have performed commendably, these are far less disastrous than I had expected from you! I am _so_ glad I can remember this day as when the two of us spent Valentine's Day intimately with the company of only each other."

Wait.

_What._

It… it was _true._

"You _ass_," stuttered Alfred in horror, "You – you—" So that really _had_ been his plan, it _was _all a plot for Russia to spend Valentine's Day with him, and he had fallen for it, he had fallen for it _all_, the flower making, the sentimental nostalgic crap, _everything, _it had been a trap, a _trap—!_

"You are _milk scum_, Russia, and I hate you," he growled wrathfully between clenched teeth. "You are naught but _milk scum._"

"Prasite?" Russia made his way to the front door, stepping around the various storage crates and boxes. Alfred stomped after him, not about to let him off easy.

"_Yeah. _Like, see my hand?"

"Da, I see," replied Russia agreeably, and reached out to hold it. Alfred whipped his hand away.

"_NO._ No touching, you creepy Russian man. Okay. So imagine I am holding a saucepan in this hand of mine, right? I am warming some milk. _But then I overheat it and this gross milk scum forms on top._ It is _so gross_ I don't even want to _touch _it, so I take a spoon and I scoop it off and I dump it into the trashcan along with all the old cabbage and whatever and then I send the spoon to a chemical lab or something to get it atomically _sanitized_. And that milk scum is _you_."

"You are very adorable," Russia informed him sagely, and put on his coat.

Alfred began to yank at hair in frustration. Tony's head popped out around the corner hopefully, tweezers already in hand.

"I can't believe you – you came all this way – or maybe you teleported, I don't know – but just to be a total bastard – you – you _milk scum_." He began to resume his storage crate organizing with a vengeance. No frivolous object was safe from his final _USELESS CRAP_ judgment. "Get the hell _out_ of here already!"

"Da, I will take my leave shortly – I have other matters to tend to as well, of course. But, here."

And Russia pressed one of the paper flowers into his hand (augh less touching please). Alfred held it up to see that it was the same blue rose Russia had first made when showing him what he wanted them to do.

"I'm going to throw this out, you know," Alfred told him sullenly. Russia shrugged, smiling.

"It is a gift. You may do with it whatever you please," he said, his hand on the doorknob, and opening the front door, "Although, do you really wish to say that you received _nothing_ on St. Valentine's Day?"

Alfred's mouth dropped open in outrage at the _nerve_ of the asshole, and he swung around, looking for a trashcan, but finding only the _USELESS CRAP_ box to his immediate northeast.

"Do svidaniya to you, then, and do svidaniya, alien!" The cold outside air began to flood into the hallway. Tony waved goodbye.

"However, _Amerika_," said Russia then, and he was halfway out the door now, "Perhaps the true reason I came to you today was not merely to engage your services, and not merely because of the holiday, but because, perhaps, I had a notion that you, left with your thoughts only, might be feeling lonely in this grand, empty house of yours?"

"What?" responded Alfred, his back to the door and his hand raised high in the air, dramatically prepared to send the blue rose shooting straight into the oblivion that was four cardboard walls labeled _USELESS CRAP_ in bold, black, permanent ink.

"Oh, you heard me," Russia said pleasantly, and with a frigid whirling breeze and a terminating _click_, the door closed.

It was quiet again.

Alfred's hand was still suspended up above his head, the rose still clutched between his fingers. Tony gazed at him, expressionless.

"Fuckin' stupid milk scum," Alfred muttered poisonously, and he hurled the delicate paper flower into the box.


	8. Chapter 8

from russia, with love

* * *

"A-alfred," pleaded Canada, teeth chattering, with his arms wound tightly around Kumajiro and his back to the wind, "Can you stop being a moron and go inside already?"

Alfred was shaking uncontrollably. "N-n-n-n-no way, man. I refu…I refuse to – to – give in to – give into the will of this gross European winter. No way in…in hell. Don't be a wuss, M-m-matthew."

Canada shook his head and watched his breath practically solidify in the frigid air. "You're even worse off than I am though."

"N-n-no I'm not," Alfred denied as he burrowed his nose into the frozen fleece lining of his collar and tried to squeeze even closer against Canada's torso, squishing Kumajiro in between them and cowering from the relentless torrent of cold air. It was just the wind. Once the wind stopped, all would be well. Just the wind…

The wind stopped. It was still cold as piss.

"Maaattieeee," he whined.

"…What?"

"It's _freeeeeeeziiiiiiing_."

Canada tried to glare down at his brother through frost-coated glasses and failed. Alfred's face was just too pathetic. He instead looked longingly into the window of the small and chic café that they were, thanks to a certain stupid American, currently _not _taking refuge in.

Alfred sneezed and then sniveled at a moderate volume. "I hate winter. I hate coldness. I hate wind. I hate snow. I hate weather. I hate F-f-_france._"

That last statement was not as out of the blue as it sounded – actually, it fit the current situation quite appropriately, seeing as the source of their weather woes at the moment were due to a) the fact that they were _in_ France, as was prudent due to the presence of the February world meeting being hosted by France, and France, it being winter, was cold, and b) the fact that the reason they were standing outside a perfectly wonderful and warm café and freezing their asses off instead of standing _inside _a perfectly wonderful and warm café and _not_ freezing their asses off was due to France, the man himself, being situated comfortably inside said perfectly wonderful and warm café at the particular point in time instead.

"You're a moron," Canada told Alfred. "He's really not that bad of a guy."

"I don't c-c-care! I'm still deciding which is worse, France or standing outside, okay?"

"Eh, well, one of them does involve hypothermia and subsequent side effects like _dying_…"

Alfred shivered violently. "Yeah, I'm l-leaning towards staying outside too."

From the corner of his eye Alfred watched Canada and his bear exchange weary meaningful glances, or, at least, watched Canada give Kumajiro a weary meaningful glance while Kumajiro reached up with a paw and tried to bat his master's glasses off of his face. "You could just go inside yourself, you know," he groused.

"Al, the only reason I'm out here with you in the first place is because I feel sorry for you looking so _pitiful_, and that you'd probably even look more like a dunce standing outside by yourself. I thought you were the one who said you'd rather go to hell than be cold? Whatever happened to that?"

"'France is gross and I don't want to see him more than I have to' happened to th-th-that."

Well, it was partly true. France_ was_ inside the café, and Alfred _didn't_ want to see him more than he had to at meetings, but his refusal to enter was somewhat more so because of the Frenchman's table buddy sitting all cozy along with him inside the café that made him not want to… His brow furrowed and he muttered something unintelligible and violent-sounding under his breath. Canada sighed in a way that suggested he totally knew what Alfred was thinking about, which was kind of not good.

"Why don't we just go somewhere else, Matt?" he suggested quickly.

"We can't. This is the only place close to the conference building that's actually open today, if we went to the next closest one we probably wouldn't make it back in time for the second half of the meeting."

"How do you know?"

"Well," Canada said slowly, eyeing Alfred warily as if worried he might accidentally set off a gas explosion with his words, "France…France told me. I talked to him and England during the break after the value-of-the-euro discussion, I mean, they actually paid attention to me for once, so I just…I guess…"

Alfred muttered some more unintelligible things under his breath.

It was _cold_, and he was _unhappy_, the coldness being the primary cause of his unhappiness. He wanted nothing more than to barge on in there and order the hugest, hottest, most excellent cup of café-au-lait that his stomach could possibly withhold, and yet, he simply _couldn't_ just walk inside like it didn't matter that _that person_ was there. But oh, his poor, delicate, angelic face, subjected to the horrors of these blistering elements. His younger brother's scrawny chest and the bear's uncaring demeanor were having very little success in the ways of a windshield. Plus, Canada had even gone behind his back and exchanged peaceable words with the enemy. _Traitorous behavior? _That was no way to stick up for each other. Canada was supposed to be his homeboy, but where was the brotherly love? How totally…_frugal_ of him.

"Al…" Canada started tentatively.

Alfred gave a frozen grunt to show he was listening. He wondered if he sounded close to dying yet. It would serve his cruel, uncaring little sibling right.

"How's Russia?"

And he thought his mood couldn't sink any lower.

"Wh-wh-wh-wh-_why_," stammered Alfred with appall, his rate of shivering increasing by a factor of eighteen hundred, "Would you e-e-ever, e-e-e-_ever_ even con - consid - _consider_ asking me s-something l-li-like _that?_" Why did they all have to make fun of him? The situation was bad enough as it was without them all ripping his brain matter apart incessantly and then pounding salt and lemon juice into the perforations with rubber mallets! It wasn't fair!

Canada wasn't laughing at him though, or even meeting his gaze, for that matter. His gloved fingers fondled Kumajiro's fur.

"You…spent Valentine's Day with him, didn't you?"

"_How did you know?_" gasped Alfred, horrified. Goddamn! He was ruined!

"E-eh? You told me on the phone, isn't that right?" Oh.

"Well…don't say 'spent the day', that sounds totally b-bad. It was more like a n-n-n-nonconsensual violation of house virginity. My poor house, tainted, forever…" A pure and sorrowful teardrop tried to squeeze from the corner of his watery eye but froze into ice before it could escape. It hurt.

"No matter how you say it, Alfred, it's still… and, you've been exchanging emails, haven't you?"

"It t-totally matters how you say it. It's not 'exchanging emails', it's more like internet communicational _harassment_…"

But despite all of his jokes and purposeful despairing, his brother was still looking at him in that weird, quiet way, still with the expression like that of a wounded puppy. What was there for him to be so melancholy about? It wasn't like _Canada _was the one who had to suffer all of this unjustified disastrousness. Alfred really didn't understand other people sometimes. Oh, if only everyone shared his almighty and superpowered brain, but maybe that was taking wishful thinking a bit too far.

"Al," said Canada, clutching Kumajiro a little closer to his chest and stepping back so Alfred was a few inches away now, and Canada could speak to his face properly. "It's just that it's…they'll…"

Alfred waited.

"It's…dangerous, you know?"

Uh…

_Yeah?_

What, was this what Canada had been building up all that tension to say? That Russia was dangerous? Well, that was a complete waste of anxiety. As if he needed to be _told_ that this flying shit bucket war was dangerous – and yet he had been, not just once, or even twice, but _three_ times! That was definitely overshooting the goal a little there.

"Don't get too…too _close_…okay?"

"Matt," Alfred replied, feeling pretty unimpressed, "Do you pay for membership into this club?" His teeth weren't even chattering anymore, they were all so individually disappointed. Every last one of them. Each of his molars accounted for twice the disappointment, due to their larger ratio of size.

"Don't—what?" Canada blinked in surprise.

"This _club_. This club that you and everybody's mother seems to be in."

Canada's face had rearranged itself to portray utter confusion very nicely. "Club? What do you…what do you mean, I don't…?"

"This America Is Stupid club. It seems pretty swanky! Do you have cocktail parties where you all stand around in suits and top hats and discuss how low my intelligence is? And there are waiters going around serving flutes of fancy alcohol and sea-things-on-crackers? That sounds pretty cool! I might be interested in joining!"

"What are you talking about, Alfred, I'm not in any such… Kumajiro, do you know?" Canada turned down to his bear, perplexed.

Kumajiro considered his master for a moment, as if unsure of who he was meant to be, and then recommenced snuffling into Canada's breast pocket in search of buried treasure. Or something.

"…Seriously, Matthew. You think I don't know this is dangerous? _Shit_ yeah this is dangerous! This is dangerous as hell! Did you know every second you so much as _think_ about Russia, your chances of falling into a tiger pit increase by five percent? I've probably broken the meter already! We're probably in one right now! A huge elaborate tiger pit cleverly disguised as Paris, full of tigers cleverly disguised as transit buses that can run you over in one blow! I'm not about to get _close_ to him. I just still need to figure out a way to _put him to rest_, if you know what I mean…"

The scary glint his older brother sometimes got had returned to his eyes, and Canada shivered involuntarily, despite having already adjusted to the cold.

"But, Alfred, do you really understand?"

"_Duh_."

"…Well, alright. If you really do…"

Canada looked gloomy again. Alfred sighed. "You know, this is why no one ever pays any attention to you. You just have to go around making everything out to be like some horrendous terrible event. Oh no, everything's a disaster! Boo hoo hoo! The world's going to end! Eff my life!"

"…No, that's you, Al—"

"_Hahaha what are you talking about Matthew be quiet._"

"…You're such a child."

"_Hahaha what are you talking about Matthew be quiet._"

"…I'm going to go inside."

"What? No!" Alfred latched onto his arm hastily. "I'm a child! I'm immature! Don't leave me out here by myself, please, Mattie!"

Canada sighed and plucked his arm from Alfred's ensnarement. "You could just come with me, instead of freezing to death out here, you child."

Alfred shook his head fervently until he felt lightheaded. "No way! I'll stay out here until I freeze! I'll stay until I die! It's not even that cold anymore, I can't feel—" He sneezed.

"Yes, you child, that's _likely—_"

"About as likely as _Canadian Olympic hockey _being dominated by _US teams_, hahahahaha…" His laughter quickly died as Canada abruptly turned tail and swept into the café. The door ornament jingled joyously. "_No, Mattie, noooooo…!_"

He pressed his face against the window and tried to look as miserable as possible, but Canada didn't turn, instead going straight to France's table and sitting down. After a moment France noticed him and gestured for a waiter. Canada's mouth moved as he said something, and France looked at the window. Alfred's nose was pressed up attractively against the glass. France waved. Alfred started to wave back before realizing what he was doing and scowled at him. Then…

Then France leaned over and said something to _that person_, and _that person_ turned around in his chair, thick eyebrows raised in a very what-the-hell-are-you-doing fashion, before smiling and giving him a wave as well.

Alfred waved back, tore away from the window, and quickly spun around, his back thudding against the glass pane. Hmm, yep, he'd made up his mind, ha ha ha! He'd definitely stay out here for the rest of his free time before the meeting recommenced, after all, why not? Fresh air was good for the body and soul. It wasn't even that cold anymore. In fact, he was feeling kind of warm, maybe even too warm! How funny!

Alfred covered his eyes with his palms and sighed.

Russia's house call had been terrible in more ways than one; many, _many_ more ways. The first and foremost terrible way, had, of course, been the fact that Russia had _been at his house_. _Oh geez._ But also pretty high on the list was that, thanks to all of Russia's unwanted mentioning of various depressing things that had nothing to do with Alfred anyway, his mind had poured a fresh new pot of delicious, barrel-aged, unpleasant memories and since then up till now and even _through _now his brain was churning through those thoughts so fast that they were curdling and becoming even more unpleasant than before. If that even made any sense.

And look at this. It just resulted in more disaster! Here he was, stranded outside on the street, his life force being chipped and scattered away with each unmerciful gust of wind. Maybe, if he died here, the café owners would rope his frozen corpse off with some red tape and golden poles and keep him as a promotional statue. This café would probably become one of the most fantastic and most awesome and most popular spots in the city if they did. Even dead, Alfred was pretty confident that his natural luster and glow of coolness that emanated from his pores as one of his body's natural secretions (they were just unused by-products, because he possessed way too much amazing for even _himself_ to totally utilize) would manage to hang around and last for a couple more centuries. He wondered if the café owners would be grateful. Probably not, since they were related to France. Probably.

Canada had abandoned him. His veins were turning into very long and intricate webs of ice. He was too embarrassed to go inside the god damned café, and furthermore would probably have nothing to eat or drink until after the second meeting. Back in the good old golden days lunch had been served _at_ the meetings, but then came that one incident where _Alfred_ had just happened to be hosting it and he thought it might come as a pleasant change to his guests if they were served something that didn't involve hamburgers, and, well…to summarize, food was no longer traditionally provided at the monthly country-only world conferences. No further questions, please.

Now, resuming with his mental list of sad things that applied to the current situation, his blood was freezing, he couldn't go back inside the café, wouldn't have anything to eat or drink, and additionally, he looked like an absolute moron standing by himself as he was doing, according to the weird look he had just gotten from a woman bicycling by with her long coat trailing out behind her. He was also unable to return to the conference building, simply because he had already left it. To go back was to admit defeat! How shameful, he couldn't possibly do that!

Now, what else could he gripe about? To be honest, he was actually running out of ideas, which just wouldn't do. There had to be at least fifty things that were wrong with his life at that very moment – he just had to think a bit harder, that was all. If Russia were here, well, that'd definitely be an excellent cause for additional moping, but he wasn't _that_ desperate for reasons to complain…

…And of course here came Russia, walking leisurely in his direction with his scarf tails flapping enigmatically in the wind. That man seemed to have an impeccable sense of timing. How the hell did he do it? Was he psychic as _well_ as able to teleport? That was so unfair. Alfred was supposed to be the one with ESP and epic things like that. They made one seem incredibly heroic, so obviously he was the one more deserving of such abilities. And why did Russia get to look cool with all the scarf-flapping? That was so unfair too. Alfred didn't have anything to flap. Gone were the times when the average dude could go cantering around in the middle of the street waving an American flag. These days, they'd have you arrested for creating a disturbance and jaywalking in no time flat, and, if you just so happened to be naked at the same time, public indecency. Alfred wished he could display some scarf-flapping too, but then it would just look like he was copying Russia, and that was definitely a no-go.

But this wasn't the time to be thinking things like that. Russia was pulling steadily nearer, and Alfred had to think fast. Okay, General, he conspired to himself. What's the plan? Direct assaults were useless. Infiltration was useless. Subtlety was, by far, extremely useless. Actually, now that he really thought about it, everything was useless. What the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn't think of anything. The coldness had reduced his brain cell function by a third. And aghh, Russia was getting closer, Russia was almost at him, what should he do, what should he do agh agh agh wait. Stop. Hold on boy. Don't panic. Calm down and think prope_auuughhh Russia was almost here oh nooooooo—!_

"Hello, America, hellooo," sang Russia, his breath clouding around his face like he was some kind of giant, broad-shouldered, very tall steam mechanism. "Oh, but we are in France, are we not? In that case, shall I say, _Bo-on-joo-ouuur?_"

"Hello, Russia, hello," Alfred echoed, a grotesquely fake grin on his face, as he had suddenly and unexpectedly, in his moment of panic, decided that the course of action for today's battle would be to act as obviously artificially happy as possible. "We are definitely in France, isn't it great ha ha bonjour!"

"Da, it is! I think we should speak some of my language as well, would that not be fun? Amerika, Amerika, kak dela, dorogaya moya?"

Alfred chortled with a disgusting amount of pseudo-heartiness. "_Hahahaha_, but Russia, Russia, I don't know any actual Russian, you know? It's so nasty and stuff after all, like watching sumo wrestlers make out with their stomach folds jiggling around! We should speak English instead! Actually, I should just speak English instead, and you can go speak Russian somewhere else! It would be mean of me to make you say something other than your native language, am I right, am I right?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, America, you are such a considerate boy, I am very much touched by your thoughtfulness!" Russia was taking Alfred's unexplained random joviality in impressively good stride. "But if I were to go somewhere else to speak Russian, that would mean I would have to separate myself from _you! _That would be very sad, since anyone may testify that you are such a pleasant person to be around, providing they can handle the unpleasant greasy odors that released from your bodily orifices on a continuous basis!"

"Hahaha, oh, Russia, what a dick you are!" Alfred laughed, leering at Russia unpleasantly.

Russia giggled, beaming widely. "Oh, America, and you are so flattering, too! How I do enjoy your idiocy!"

"Hahaha, oh, Russia!"

"Oh, yes, America, indeed!"

"Hahaha, Russia!"

"Da, America!"

Alfred glowered at him.

Russia looked saddened. "Oh, are you finished already? I was having very much fun."

"What do you want, Russia?" Alfred stamped his feet and pressed his arms closer to his body. The cold was settling in again. How marvelous.

"Always the assumptions, Amerika. Why do you ask what I want of you? In truth, I was merely returning from a walk around the city and was on my way back to the conference building. You simply happened to be on the way! Since you looked so foolish standing outside this café for no reason, I thought I would greet you."

Yeah, right. As if Russia hadn't been listening in on them when Canada had suggested to Alfred that they go to a nearby café (come to think of it, Canada had gotten the idea from France who had left for the same place, hadn't he). He had been reluctant to go out into the cold, and even more so to go out into Paris, which he personally considered to be _highly suspicious_ due to it being France's capital (and hey, that Eiffel Tower protrusion probably represented _something_), but with Russia being pretty nearby in the meeting room, he had no choice but to take the chance and hightail it out of there.

Did Russia decide to torment him whenever he felt like it and when the opportunity arose, or was everything premeditated? Alfred glanced at him. Russia was monitoring an icicle that had formed on the gutter lining the café's window, looking very at ease with life and as if he hadn't any worries at all, much unlike Alfred who happened to have been pretty enraged at everything there ever was since creation for a good while now. The daft, childish look on man's face shone brightly and innocently in the glow produced by the brilliant white snow that was packed onto every available flat surface of the building.

He was _clearly_ every inch the criminal mastermind Alfred had long made him out to be. Just looking at him… What kind of blood-chilling, macabre thoughts were writhing underneath that extremely large and well-built surface? Alfred shuddered. He couldn't even imagine the horrors that Russia probably fantasized about during his daily twenty-ton aerobic workouts and small-animal-butchering tasks. It was a frightening thought, but Alfred had virtually no semblance of an idea of what Russia would do next to him, and was equally mystified as to what he would do when such awfulness actually happened. His fate may have already been written out for him, months in advance, _years_ in advance, and he, the poor, valiant, suffering American protagonist, was just a fly (albeit a way cool and amazing fly) caught in an inescapable, impenetrable, bad, _bad_ Russian web of _death._

"What are you thinking about, dear America?"

"Nothing."

Giggle. "Oh, but that cannot possibly be true! Your face was presenting the most otherworldly expressions!"

"No it wasn't."

"Yes, I pledge to you that it was! They changed every two seconds. I do not think any two of them were the same, like a snowflake! You are akin to a rare animal, America. Do all of your children behave this way?"

Alfred grimaced at him with much ugliness. "…No."

Russia clapped his hands together excitedly. "So you are an endangered species! You should be protected by the government!"

"…I proceed to silently ignore you," Alfred said, turning away from Russia and proceeding to silently ignore him.

Unfortunately, Russia was apparently not a veteran player of this particular game and thus broke all the unspokenly established rules pretty immediately. "So then, endangered species America, what is it that causes you to be standing outside of this café in the cold instead of inside it? Could it be your natural habitat?"

"None of your business. I like it out here." Damn it, and now Alfred just broke the rules too. What was the point anymore? In the end, everybody – _everybody_ – lost the game. Either that or they died. Looked like he was headed to do both.

"Hmm," Russia mused thoughtfully. "I am inclined to label that as highly unlikely! According to my researches, you are quite well known for your frequent complaints about even mildly warm weather being too chilly for you!"

_There it was!_ Yet another admittance of stalkership! When had this all began? Could it be that Russia had been keeping surveillance on him for years now? Could his espionage have reached and wormed itself into the structures of his home already? No, no, don't be ridiculous, the last time Russia had been in his house (and this was way, _way _back, mind, in Alfred's much younger days when he had hated Russia slightly less – only slightly! – although the fear level was roughly the same) had been when things like spy cameras and hidden microphones and whatever hadn't even been invented yet… wait. Urk. Russia had been in his house very recently, hadn't he? Then that meant, possibly, every time that…every time Alfred used the shower…_oh, man._

_OH MAN OH MAN OH MAN._

Hold it, General, he preached inwardly, while his pupils and irises freaked out and spasmed, Calm thyself. Let's not jump to conclusions here like some lankily awkward pole-vaulting Olympian dude with his limbs all sprawling around. Russia hadn't been out of his sight once during his so called "visit" on Valentine's Day. Plus, Tony would have notified him about any malicious electronic activity going on in places it wasn't supposed to be, such as behind the showerhead or inside the john or on his bedposts or anything. What a terrible thought, but…yeah. There couldn't possibly be any spy bugs in his house.

…W-w-wait! But wasn't Russia like psychic and had telekinesis or teleportation or whatever, though? At least, that was what Alfred himself had deducted! Wait, _wait,_ that was right, now that he thought about it, Japan had once mentioned something about a curse from Russia, 18-year something or other, hadn't he? Maybe Russia had laid some sort of curse or used his weird power on Alfred's house, instead! Oh no, oh no! He'd have to – have to – have to get it exorcised or something! Or…implement countercurses? Augh, he didn't know about any of this stuff, his job was to swing around from skyscrapers and save falling girls before they hit the ground and douse forest fires from helicopters and suchlike! He'd have to ask someone…Japan? Japan had things like curse-banishing, right? But maybe that was different? And Japan hadn't been able to stave off Russia's curse, if memory served correctly. Who else was there – oh, of course! Who else would know about things like evil magic and curses and spells better than his very own…

Russia was applauding appreciatively. "My, my, endangered species America, that was a very good sequence as well! First it was a shocked look, then more of a horrified appearance? Then it looked like you were in deep thought, which surprised me, then your whole body stood straighter all of a sudden, and then there were a few I just could not identify, they were so inhuman! And then following, your face twisted into something so angry I just had to laugh, and then something very hopeful-looking, and then something strange again, and now, well…" He paused to consider it. "Now, it is not nearly as much fun. To become a successful entertainer one must leave the audience in good spirits, dear America, and not appear so dejected!"

"…Go away, Russia."

"Oh? I think I may stay if I wish to. This is a public area, after all. Who are you to assume that I am here expressly to speak to you? Perhaps I am merely enjoying the outdoors in a place that, coincidentally, happens to be a short distance away from where you are standing!"

Yeah, a short distance as in two feet on the sidewalk from Alfred's left. And didn't he say he was heading back to the conference room just a while ago?

"Well, rare animal? Why is it I find you standing coincidentally near where I have come to stand also? You failed to answer my query shortly before you began to engage your face into various interesting contortions again."

Ugh. Maybe Alfred would just go inside… but no, he couldn't do that either! Damn it, stuck between a rock and a much more annoying rock. How uncool. "…I'm sunbathing."

"Oh? In winter? Wearing a coat? You will have to remove all of your articles of clothing if you wish me to accept that as a plausible argument, America."

Oh, great. Grinning wrathfully at him, Alfred retorted, very amicably, "Oh yeah my bad you're right! Well hey Russia it's kind of embarrassing to strip right in front of you so would you mind going somewhere else for a while and coming back in, say, four hours or so and then I'll be ready to prove it you hahaha?"

"Nyet, that is not necessary, America! I will just close my eyes." Cheerfully, Russia did so.

Painful smacking noises filled the air as Alfred punched his palm angrily for a few minutes.

Russia opened an eye. "I do not know about your country, America, but in mine, hitting your own hand is not the usual equivalent of declothing yourself."

Alfred shook his now aching fist at him threateningly. "That's because in Soviet Russia, hand hits you!"

Shaking his head, Russia smiled at him – that condescending smile that he had been favoring a lot lately, possibly for Alfred-only use. Creep. Alfred's teeth began to chatter from both irritation and re-freezing-to-death-ness.

"You are cold," Russia stated. It wasn't a question, which was just as well, because Alfred didn't intend on answering him. Russia was apparently fine with this, because he was moving on to another question anyway.

"Now, let me ask you, for a third time…why would a person so fearful of the cold weather, who is feeling cold unnecessarily at this very moment, reject the very obvious salvation from said cold that would be the café door just a few steps over there?"

Alfred made a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat and shoved his hands back into his pockets. He _couldn't_ go in, god damn it. Maybe a month ago it would have been fine, doable, no problemo, but now…after Russia had gone ransacking around in his brain (intentionally? Probably not, he hoped) on that day, Alfred hadn't been able to help thinking those thoughts that, all these years, he'd gone to such lengths to suppress. Thoughts about his own stupidity, the stupid things that he himself had done, both to others and to his own people, how could he, how _could _he have done such stupid, stupid things, god, he was such an idiot, and, perhaps…perhaps one of the stupidest things, in his selfish, stupid opinion, that he had done out of all of them was to hope for, and destroy, that _particular_ feeling with that particular person, that…that _older brother_…but he had only been allowed to call him that once, hadn't he, before the phrase was banned forever?

In any case, it didn't matter. The grit of it was, after all these stupid ideas had been propelling themselves flagellically around in his head like prokaryotic cells for hours on end without reprieve, Alfred was highly doubtful – in fact, he had no faith in himself at all – that he would be able to act as he always did around _that person_, like nothing had ever happened, like they had been aloof, at-odds best friends since the universe had exploded the countries into being. Very likely was that he would do something stupid or say something stupid and then there'd be that awkward silence again, the quiet that Alfred hated, that annoyingly upsetting feeling that he just couldn't stand… He was embarrassed, and he just _couldn't_ go in. He couldn't.

"I do not wish to ask a fourth time…but, admittedly, I would like to have _some_ semblance of a conversation with you, and, sadly, it must start somewhere, _Amerika._"

And for some reason, Alfred's mouth was opening, and it wasn't to exhale, because his nostrils were doing a perfectly decent job of supplying air in and out of his lungs in a puff of white condensation as they had been for a while now, and for some reason, he was seized by the crazy notion that he might actually want to answer Russia properly, and for some reason, sounds that resembled human speech were escaping from his vocal cords, and for some reason, he began to mumble, "I…it's because…"

Then he stopped.

Then he started again.

Then he stopped and looked at Russia, who, like last time in his house, was giving him yet another totally different smile the likes of which Alfred had never seen before. He took a mental commemorative snapshot before realizing what exactly the smile seemed to show. It was the smile of one who understood exactly what you were thinking about despite any allegations that the smiler may protest upon. It was superior and knowing.

"If you already know what I'm going to say," Alfred said to him, feeling unpredictably angry, "Why bother asking, asshole?"

Russia giggled and then that knowing smile was gone. "I do not recall implicating any knowledge of what you were about to say, however! What size would you like?"

"You so totally—huh?"

"What size would you like?"

Alfred's eyebrows knitted together in bewilderment. "What size would I whateverthefuck?"

"Beverage. What size beverage would you like." Russia cocked his head towards the café window. "I was not sure if they served carry-out drinks here, but I just saw that clerk handle some foam cups, and thus…"

"What the hell does this have to do with anything?"

Russia blinked at him. "Well, since it seems you will insist on remaining outside for an undetermined period of time, and you appear to be suffering from the temperature, would it not be sensible to have a hot beverage to drink while you are out here?" He started to reach for the door.

"Whoa, wait!" What was Russia trying to do? This was so random, he didn't even… and, even Russia going inside seemed like a bad idea, just because _that person_ was inside, and he didn't know, maybe it would just draw more attention to Alfred or something, or…or something, and he didn't want that…or something!

"Oh, that is right, I apologize. What would you like? Coffee? Tea?" Russia giggled slightly at Alfred's obvious recoil at the mention of the second option. Damn it. Was this what Russia was going for? To make him feel even _more_ embarrassed about last time, and to make him think even more about things he didn't _want_ to think about?

"I never asked you to—"

"Hmm? I did not realize that I was in need of your permission, America." The bell dinged softly as the door opened and closed.

For the second time that day, Alfred smooshed his face upon the glass most charmingly, peering through the fog that clouded the other side of the window. The Russian was making his way to what must have been a counter that was out of Alfred's sight range and his upper half disappeared momentarily, presumably leaning over to make an order. France and company hadn't noticed him yet – no, now they did, with France jolting in his seat with alarm. A spark of nervousness ran through Alfred's body as he watched _that person – _oh, _screw_ it, it was England, what was the point of not thinking his name – actually stand up, his chair snapping back forcefully, caught off guard by Russia's sudden appearance. His mouth moved, rapidly – asking what Russia was doing there, he supposed – and Canada looked nervously from the two back to France and then over at Alfred. Russia was the only one whose posture was still relaxed. Smiling, he said something in reply to England, jerking his thumb to the window before vanishing in the direction of the counter again, pulling a wallet from his pocket. England followed Russia's gesture until he was facing the front of the café, where Alfred stood visibly, watching them through the window.

Their eyes met.

England's gaze was serious, confused, and possibly – worried? There wasn't any apparent real, drastic cause for England to be showing that kind of worry, but that was of little concern, because right now, Alfred couldn't pull away, and at the same time he could barely restrain himself from fleeing, and he couldn't avert his gaze from those eyes, those green eyes, and that outstretched hand, and that broken arm in a sling, and that toy soldier, and that soothing voice and that comforting embrace and that tariff paper and that harbor full of floating crates of tea and that crooning lullaby and that blasting cannon and that soft stroke of hands on his cheek and that hope that maybe, maybe, _maybe_ his older brother felt _that way_, maybe he felt like Alfred did, and that dream that maybe, _maybe_ they could be _like that…_and that sharp and shining bayonet whose metallic gleam was only beautified all the more by the endless torrent of rain around them.

He tried to give a sheepish grin, a foolish face, a Hey-can-you-believe-this-Russia-guy-still-won't-give-up-this-torture-hoopla kind of shrug, something to reassure England that nothing was wrong, that he was just standing out here because France sucked, that he didn't know why England looked so worried but there was really no reason for him to be, but he just couldn't, not then, not with those thoughts running rampant in his head, not with those eyes boring into his, no, he couldn't, he just _couldn't_—

Alfred whirled around and this time made sure to tramp down past the window to where the side of the café became just brick wall, where he was out of view, and slammed his back against it, heart thudding and willing with all his strength that his trembling legs remain upright and keep him from sliding onto the dirty, snow-strewn ground.

_God I am so stupid I am so stupid I am so stupid I am so stupid I am such a god damn pussy._

He took several deep breaths and was just steadying himself when the sound of a bell made him raise his head. Russia was carrying a foam cup, steam rising from a little gap in the lid, towards him, betraying no surprise or even any notice, really, to find that Alfred had shifted about three meters down the wall from where he had left him.

"It is a small sized one," Russia told him cheerfully, handing the cup to him, "Or is it 'petit'? It is not likely to matter, anyways, since I asked for a small in English and this is what they gave me. Well, you did not specify any size preference, and I felt that the money would be wasted upon someone like you, whose species is apparently dying out. I suppose, considering it now, that there is also no point in fattening you up any further, do you not agree?"

Alfred glared at him maliciously and observed the cup with mistrust. He had forgotten all about Russia momentarily – foolishly creating openings for the drink to have been laced with poison or piss or date rape or some evil drug that would make his breath unpleasant for the rest of his years and drive away any potential night-time candidates and cause him to die a broken and very dry and deprived man. Or maybe the Russian's aim was to take different offensive. Maybe it was tea. Actually, it was probably tea. Russia seemed to be the type of guy who'd never miss a chance to make fun of him, or in this case, never miss a chance to pester him to straight to hell. And just when it was the absolute worst moment for him to do something like this, too, he was just going to start languishing about in his brooding thoughts all over again, god, he was such a pussy, he was _such_ a _pussy…_

He took a cautious sip and then glanced sharply at Russia, who was rummaging around in the folds of his clothing. Russia had that infuriatingly unbearable _knowing_ smile on his face again. "This is…"

"…Hot chocolate?" finished Russia for him, humming and looking pleased that he had just discovered a spare button in his coat pocket. "Or, as Mr. France enjoys calling it, 'au chocolat chaud'?"

Alfred took another sip, relishing briefly in the searing heat as it burned his tongue and throat and destroyed all his nerve endings. "I'm not thanking you," he muttered, staring at the snow.

Russia raised his head to the white-gray sky. "I did not state that thanks were a requirement, Amerika."

Alfred switched the hands holding his drink. "…There's only one."

"Hm?"

"There's only one cup."

"Da."

"…Where's yours?"

Russia giggled. "What is it you are referring to? I purchased only one! For you!"

"…Oh."

Without warning, Russia swung over so his face was a very uncomfortable handful of inches from Alfred's head. His smile was its default level of frightening. "It could not be that you are feeling guilty? If it would be of comfort to you, dear America, would you like to share?"

Alfred launched himself away with power-jumping spectacularness, flailing his free hand around wildly. "_No thanks_, I'll drink it, damn you, and also I think it would be a pretty good idea _right_ here _right_ now that we start establishing some ground rules to this new freaky psycho obsession you seem to have with me, alright?"

"Yes, that is alright!" sang Russia obediently with far too much indifference.

"_Okay._ Ears up. So first of all, you are fully completely utterly absolutely _forbidden_ to come within, like, three feet of me, alright? That means, right now, you are totally breaching contract and need to remove your big humongous meatshield self backwards in _that_ direction _now _sir!"

Russia raised his hand politely. Alfred scowled at him. "What?"

"I am sorry, Mr. United States Endangered Animal Teacher! Your imperialistic measurements are too idiotic and neanderthal-like for myself to understand! May I ask that you please convert to metric?"

"No. Now shut up." Leaning back against the bricks once more, he drew an irritable mouthful from the foam cup and was consequently sent into throes of pain as half of the taste buds on his tongue were burned out instantaneously.

"Oh, was that all of it?" inquired Russia, sounding disappointed. "As you said 'first of all', I was under the impression that there would be more of such rules following…how misleading of you, dear America!"

"Okay then, second of all, _shut up_," he hissed, feeling the words resonate tenderly around his painful tongue.

The man actually complied with him. For roughly a minute. Then, proving that harsh words and explicit instructions had little say in the antics of insufferably moronic dickheads, Russia asked, "Are you enjoying your hot foam cup beverage?"

Alfred regarded his hot foam cup beverage sulkily. "…Sure, whatever. I'm still not thanking you."

"You are so silly! As I said, I required no such thing from you, so that is completely fine!"

"Really."

"Da, really."

The sound of crushed snow and electrical whirring filled the air and faded as a moped-rider sped by on the other side of the street.

It was quiet again.

He _despised_ the quiet.

It was always Alfred's self-appointed personal duty to disperse silence whenever it chose to make itself comfortable in unwanted situations. He'd always be the one to shout out something ridiculous, to suddenly start a conversation, to be as loud and obnoxious as possible, to do _anything_, to go to _any_ lengths, to disperse the noiselessness, to stop the quiet, because he couldn't stand it, because _no one_ could stand it, yet no one else would ever be willing to do anything about it, and so he chose to be the scapegoat, he chose to be the sacrifice, he chose to be the _hero_…but was he going to do so now? Which was worse, talking to Russia or letting the silence have its way with them?

"I hate winter," he mumbled, not expecting his half-hearted attempt to be of any help, and assuming that Russia would just reply with something retarded as usual and make him wish he hadn't talked in the first place.

"…I do too."

Silence again, but it wasn't the same. Russia turned to see Alfred, who stood resting against the wall saying nothing and just looking at him with an almost-curiosity, and smiled.

"Are you still cold? Would you like to wear this?" He held up an end of his scarf and his smile widened slightly as Alfred's eyebrows knit together, asking wordlessly, _Huh?_ "Dorogaya moya, you are cute. I am merely jesting, naturally! Of course you cannot."

Alfred turned his gaze back down to the dirty, trampled snow. He swished the foam cup's contents around with the hand he held it in. "…How did your flower thing go?"

"Pardon?"

"…Did your sisters like the…the dumb flower shit?"

"Oh," said Russia, cheerfully, and he turned his face back up to the dismal sky. "I do hope so! I would not know."

"…Oh."

"What has become of my paper flower?"

"I…threw it out."

"I see. You are amusing, Amerika."

The silence settled back in, sharing space with the also-resettling coldness, and Alfred, standing a few feet (in imperial measurements, blatant _imperial measurements_, damn it) from the Russian, leaning against the same brick wall in front of which he also stood, concluded that, as a matter of fact, the quiet _was_ the better choice when choosing between it and speaking with Russia, and that he was a complete stupid piece of shit to not have realized this earlier, god damn it all.

* * *

Arthur Kirkland checked to ensure that all the proper notes were in the proper folders for the umpteenth time, the only one still seated at the conference table. He was alone in the room, save for a few attendants who were in charge of cleaning up, and France, who was just being stupid and not worthy of his attention.

"Dis, Arthur…the others have left already, allons-y…?"

"Shut it, frog face. I'm thinking."

France sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "You're taking this, perhaps, trop gravement? It is petit Alfred we are talking about, after all. He would never think to…it is pas possible. Je pense it is nothing to be concerned about."

"We're counties, Francis." Arthur stood.

"Oui?"

"We've got so many responsibilities…we can't just…"

"Mais, still, Arthur…"

Arthur was flipping through his notes idly once again, but he wasn't thinking about them at all.

America had been avoiding him during the entirety of the Paris meeting. He'd responded to discussions during the conference itself readily enough, but he was clearly evading eye contact, clearly making himself scarce during any opportunity that Arthur could have taken to approach him. And then, earlier today…what had that been all about? America, the stupid bloke, standing all by himself outside of that café…it had been freezing outside. What exactly the boy had been trying to accomplish was completely beyond him. Then again, the same applied to just about everything that America ever did.

And then, Russia. According to France, America _had_ gone to dinner with Russia last month after all, even though he'd insisted to Arthur most fervently beforehand that he would not, because, obviously, Russia was the strangest and most bloodily demonic beast on this side of the earth's crust. In addition, Canada had claimed, slightly reluctantly, that the two had been exchanging emails, and had even met privately at America's place. And then, today – when Arthur had asked Russia what exactly he was doing, the man had responded, "Oh, I am just having a little chat with dear America, you see," and he had pointed to the window, and Arthur had turned to America, wanting an answer, wanting to know _why_ exactly he was talking to Russia so comfortably…and just before America had quickly retreated from his sight, his face had looked – there was no other way to describe it – _guilty_.

What on earth was _going on?_ It couldn't possibly be that…the two of them…were possibly…?

He didn't _want_ to think that way, he didn't _want_ to have to harbor these suspicions, but there was no denying it. There was most certainly reason to worry. Canada was worried, France was worried, and, perhaps most of all—

Arthur was worried.


	9. Chapter 9

Take a look at the gratuitously great/hilarious/grealarious fanart that many readers have sent in for this story on my profile page! I love these, if you ever feel like drawing something please be sure to let me see and I will fistbump it into the wall of fame./

* * *

from russia, with love

* * *

England, according to his own claims, had been just about to call Alfred, but apparently, Alfred had beaten him to it.

"So we're talking now, I take it?" came his scoffingly British voice from the sleek black wireless telephone (a new one at that, since Alfred had taken the liberty of breaking the previous phone a few weeks ago when hurling it at the wall in the midst of a fit about the unfairness of it all).

Alfred yawned into the receiver. "Dunno what you're talking about. Why were you going to call me?"

"I should ask you the same question. But, I was wondering how you were getting on – have you been—" the phone crackled slightly and a car horn was heard on England's end "—avoiding me?"

"Are you driving? Don't answer the phone if you're driving! You'll die! Dying isn't great!"

"I'm in a cab. Don't dodge the question, Alfred." England sounded crabby, and Alfred sighed.

"No, I haven't been _avoiding_ you, prissy pants. Don't be dumb. So hey, I wanted to ask because the boss has been like bugging me about that _thing_, you know, the whatever agreement thing that he talked about with your boss at the last summit? He wants an answer on it soon, and your guy, Prime-Minister-Whatshisface, hasn't been responding, so…"

The line hummed with faint static again. "Which do you mean – oh, yes, I believe I know the one – yes, I'll talk to him, that's fine. But that's not what I meant to talk to you about. You most certainly _have_ been avoiding me lately, Alfred. What's been going on?"

"Nothing, haha," and a yawn, "I've just been busy!"

"With whom, Russia?"

It took a moment before his brain actually processed what England had just said. After the processing was done, his brain was left feeling kind of unpleasant. "…Why would you even _say _that? _Ewww_, Arthur! I've had a ton of work to do, I've _still_ got a ton of work to do, it's got nothing to do with…_ewwww._" Although in retrospect, England probably hadn't meant it in that way. Oh well. The phone-gagging had already taken place.

Alfred, standing in the main hallway next to the telephone table and leaning against the doorway into the kitchen, shifted his weight onto his other foot and rubbed his sleeve against the glass frame of an elaborate hanging painting of a pinecone. He made faces at his reflection and wondered how long the painting had been there. The things were all over his house and he just took them for granted during his daily routine, but on the rare occasions that Alfred stopped to really think about it, he never actually remembered putting the paintings up or attaining them from any particular place. It was an American mystery, Mystery Number One. Speaking of mysteries, the various paintbrushes and slabs of wood and etcetera that periodically turned up, unexplained, in random areas of his house was also a long-unsolved mystery. Where did they come from? How did they get there? Mystery Number Two.

England sure was taking his sweet time in formulating a reply. Then came his voice, sounding slightly suppressed, although what he was suppressing Alfred couldn't be sure – "You and he seem to be interacting quite a bit lately, or so I've heard."

Alfred snorted. "Because he's a _freak_ and won't leave me alone! I'll work it out, I guess. If I don't, you know, _die_ first. I might die first. I'll probably die first. _Man…_"

"…You're not…_discussing_ anything with him, are you?"

"What? Well, I guess we talk, sort of, but it's just stupid stuff. His _face_ is stupid stuff. I don't know!"

"Alfred," said England, and it was hard to tell, perhaps it was just the static, but his voice sounded distinctly somber. What was _with_ everyone? Before this it had been Canada, before that had been France, before that had been, well, England. All this serious business. People really needed to lighten up around here, in his honest opinion.

"What?" Alfred yawned again. More redundancy? _Oooh, it's dangerous, Alfred. Oh nooo, watch out for him, Alfred. Guard your chastity with your life, Alfred, if Russia touches you he might make your appendix freeze and your arteries will explode out of your skin and your glittering gorgeousness will be lost forever and the entire universe will weep until everyone's lungs fill with water and they go extinct._ If they were going to waste all this time _warning_ him about what an undelicious and unsavory situation he was in, they might as well go out of their way to form him some sort of defense squad, get huge guards built like tanks to hover around him day and night like a protective harem and if Russia tried to get anywhere within forty miles of him he'd go bouncing right off like a small runty child on some huge plasma force field.

England sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. "Is there…something going on you don't want me to know about?"

What was he trying to say? There definitely wasn't anything "going on" or any big secrets Alfred was defending with his life to keep England from finding out. What kind of delusions was the country having? Maybe – oh, god, _ew_ – maybe he was imagining there was some sort of torrid love affair taking place between the two of them or similar? Oh, ew, _ew!_

"No way in hell," Alfred replied, a little too quickly. Before England could say anything contrary, he added, "What's with all these questions, Arthur? It's like I'm _suspicious_ or something. I don't get you."

"…You must understand where I am coming from, Alfred. Please. Something like this, of your position, if it were _true_, though I am not saying it is, nor am I saying _I_ think so…"

As England started to drone on about something that sounded political and uninteresting, Tony decided to suddenly creep down the hallway from wherever he had been hiding for the past four hours. Where did the guy go when he disappeared? What did he do? Alfred had been wondering this for years, but never found _that_ out, either. Tony was Mystery Number Three.

At the moment the alien was carrying a cup, taking careful steps towards Alfred so as to not spill any of its contents onto the carpet. What was in there, anyway? Milk? But it was kind of off from a milky white, it looked more like…white water. Did he even want to know?

"…Alfred, if you don't talk to me like this, it's really my _responsibility_ to view things from this angle, don't you _see?_"

Honestly. "What are you talking about, Arthur, geez? I'm talking to you now! Ha ha listen to me, all talking to you and shit, I am talking to you _so bad_ I can't even believe it, talk talk talk talk talk. See, with you, I really don't get – Tony, what are you doing with that? Is it a chemical or something, you can't just dump that in the sink—" Too late. Tony had upended the cup filled with mysterious white liquid down the kitchen drain and turned around to look blankly at him. Oh boy. If all the whales (maybe even some he knew personally, oh no!) and dolphins and manta rays floated up dead tomorrow morning from ocean poisoning, Alfred wasn't about to be blamed for it.

"T-tony?" asked England, his tone changing considerably from serious to nervous. "That…that space chap is there, is he?"

Tony filled his now empty cup with new water and came to stand by Alfred's side, appearing disgruntled with his current telephone conversation. "Yeah! You remember? You haven't visi… you haven't seen him for a while, huh? You should talk to him! You remember Arthur, don't you, Tony? He's England!"

Tony did not look particularly pleased to be remembering England, and England did not sound particularly pleased to be remembering Tony, which was quite apparent when England muttered brusquely, "Well – there's, er, no reason for Tony to – I mean, alright, I'll see to getting that government response to your leader as soon as possible. And, er…I suppose you're busy, and you sound tired, so I'll leave you to it now, then…"

"Okay," chirped Alfred readily into the receiver. Static hummed as England paused briefly. Great, more preaching.

"…Be aware of your own position, alright, Alfred? I don't know if you yourself can see it or not…unless you really are…no, nevermind. It isn't me, I don't – well – I've told you this. It's dangerous, alright? Keep that in mind, if you actually _are_...I mean…" Trailing off commenced, and then, "See you," England finished lamely.

"Is this about Russia again—?" Alfred started to ask, but England had already hung up. The silly Brit had never seemed to enjoy Tony's coolness as much as he should. Then again, he never seemed to enjoy Alfred's coolness as much as he should, either, which definitely meant it was due to some sort of mental imbalance on England's part.

There! That hadn't been so hard at all! Looked like the elaborate measures Alfred had taken in order to rehabilitate himself to stop being a wussy little bitch where England-related topics were involved had gone perfectly. Such "measures" had actually been the brilliant work of the wonderful Tony himself. The alien, apparently tired of his stupid moping, had subjected him to the timeless and effective Alfred Therapy (more commonly known as forcing him to sit through eight hours of _unrated, director's cut, nail-ripping, blood-splattering, eyeball-bursting _horror films), which had certainly done the job of forcing all else but sheer terror out of Alfred's head. He hadn't been able to sleep alone for a week, and Tony had wearily (meaning yes, this had happened on more than a few occasions) kept him company at night until Alfred managed to doze off without waking up screaming bloody murder every thirty seconds before slipping off to do whatever it was the alien did with his spare time. Did aliens sleep at all? How did they live? (Mystery Number Four.)

Tony was giving him a look that suggested something like _Don't you have work to do?_ Urgh. Yes, he did, and he had absolutely no clue as to how he would finish it all, thus he had been procrastinating by testing out how well the Alfred Therapy had worked (and, he admitted reluctantly, he really _did_ want to talk to England again, even if it was in the normal way, even it if was a talk between _friends_, because that was okay, because after all that was what they were, right? They were friends, they had always been _friends_, and that was all Alfred wanted, of _course_).

Agh, enough of that BS. If any more work managed to accumulate in his house, his lungs might invert themselves. At the very least, it looked like he was going to do okay on the England front for now, _plus_, the weather was slowly increasing in temperature, _plus_, the economy still sucked but it wasn't quite as bad as some of the other countries' situations, _plus_, he had spring to look forward to, and with spring came good things like new flowers to be planted and thick clothes to be discarded, _plus,_ speaking of thick clothes, he was probably not going to have to put up with Russia for a while so long as no emergency meetings were called, _plus, _his computer had died on him recently from data overload and he had no way or reason to check his email for creepy Russian messages, _plus_, yeah…

"Hey, Tony," he remembered suddenly, "What exactly were you doing with that cup of water?" But the alien was already gone.

Oh well. Time to get to work. Yeah. He was going to do this. He was going to do this _so hard._

Three hours later, he had changed his mind. He was _not_ going to do this. No way in _hell _was he going to do this. It was impossible. If someone bothered to actually count the stacks of paperwork and what-have-you that he had to get through (Lord knew it wouldn't be him) and calculated the ratio of work he had to get done to the amount of time he had to _get_ it done, the result would probably be something like 369346347697839579999999:1. Maybe more.

And god, if _only_ the paperwork to be proofread and corrected and signed and rejected and submitted for rewrite were _all_ he had to do – no, he had to come up with some new plans for _this issue_ and _that problem_, he had to think up possible solutions for _those things_ and _that other whatever_, he had to analyze the statistical probability of _whateverthefuck_ based on collected data from the past decade, he had to draft multiple copies of _he didn't even know what…_

"Shit," Alfred groaned, leaning back in his desk chair. "Holy shit. How am I going to do this." Half of just about _everything_ was due in a week. Some had been due _last_ week. Shit, shit, shit. This shit was _important. _ Oh god, he was destroying his own country. America was going to be nuked by lack of completed paperwork and all the people and the babies and the dogs and the Hawaiian dancers would be pulverized into glamorously boring fossils to be put on display in polished granite school-trip museums just like the dinosaurs and the medieval chamber pots and the offbrand mp3 players and it was _all his fault_.

He couldn't handle this stuff alone. He needed help. He needed someone suitably high up that he could trust and who would actually be willing to assist him, but if he called in he'd just be put on hold and he really didn't want to drive all the way down to the office just to come away empty-handed, oh, if only he had a working _computer, _but no, because work had _killed_ that computer, and now he was hopelessly, hopelessly doomed, there was nothing left for him to…wait a minute was this the 21st century or not _yes it damn well was_ and he had _other technology_ and Alfred raced into the sitting room where his cell phone was resting innocently on the coffee table and scooped it up with a triumphant cry. Phones had _internet._ Phones had _email._ Yessss. He'd email someone, Johnson maybe, Murphy maybe, that other guy maybe, and demand by his high-ranking authority that they too be forced to suffer along with him through this unending tsunami of disaster. And the best part was, Russia bothered him only on his private email address – his government email was for the most part safe and asshole-free.

But something was wrong. His inbox was already filled with messages from work, and they were recent, the subject titles suggesting an urgency quite similar to his own. Curiously, Alfred opened the topmost message.

_MAJOR PROBLEM AT W.H. COULDN'T REACH HOUSE PHONE. URGENT. GET UP HERE ASAP. GOD DAMN IT JONES TURN YOUR CELL OFF VIBRATE._

The timelog informed him that the message had been sent to him two hours ago.

_Two hours_.

_Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit._

"Shit shit shit shit _shit_," Alfred howled in an attempt to make himself move faster as he flung his coat on and fumbled wildly through various drawers and countertops for his wallet and keys. "This is unreal. This is _unreal_." Unreal, unreal, museum fossils, that was his future, that was everyone's future, they were all going to become museum fossils, _noooooo—!_

"_SHIT,"_ he hollered as his attempt to kick on a pair of leather working shoes failed miserably and he went crashing, chin-first, onto the floor. Stars burst in his vision and pain burst in his lower jaw and some part of his body was probably simultaneously bursting into a severely injured state. His glasses were knocked free from his face as were his keys from his grasp, and in a violent grope to reclaim them, he knocked something over – a pile of old newspapers? – and sent them flying in every possible direction and now everything was a mess and his keys were somewhere in the mess and he was _two hours late_ for an _emergency_ and for all he knew his country could have been overtaken by his brother by now and would be known as Canderica or something from that point forward where the hell were his _keys_ where the hell were his _glasses _ahhhhhhhhhhhhh _shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii_

"—Here you go," said the soft, sugary voice of the sweet beautiful Virgin Mother Mary herself in all her pure holy glory, and his keys were pressed into his fingers, and the rim of his glasses were offered to his other hand, poking into the side of his thumb, oh god, no, oh, _Mary, _thank you, thank you, _thank you_, and Alfred shoved his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and looked into the face of his savior and then realized that, somewhere on the way to heaven, he had taken a wrong turn and had accidentally ended up with his face's bone structure being crushed into powder against the gates of Hades themselves.

"How the _hell _did you get into my fucking house, Russia, and ohgreatholyfuck I do not have fucking time for this oh shit shit shit shit _shit!_"

Russia gave him a sad face, which didn't really achieve its desired effect due to the fact that he was still smiling as usual. "Well, America, this certainly is disappointing. We were getting along so well last time, as well! What is the reasoning for these unfriendly feelings?"

"Fucking _because_—" Damn it, no, he did not have time for this. And anyway, he didn't really feel that explaining to Russia his lack of any real extreme aggression and/or his putting up with the man's presence for the most part without complaint that day outside the Parisian café had merely been because Alfred had been caught at a weak moment, too preoccupied with his stupid England griping to really care about insignificant beings like the Russian. In fact, he was kind of even _more_ preoccupied with the whole _emergency-at-work_ issue right now, so…

"Leave. Now."

"Goodness, such a dramatic change I am seeing from you, dear America!"

"I. Do. Not. Have. Time. For. This. _Shit._" God damn it. God damn it. Why this, why Russia, why _now?_ He couldn't just kick Russia out of his house, that much had been established during his Valentine's Day invasion, and he couldn't _leave_ him here, but most of all, Alfred definitely could _not_ take Russia with him into one of the most nationally important and heavily guarded government buildings of his entire country. "Russia, god damn it, you _cannot_ fucking _be_ here right now, so please tell me why the fuck are you _being_ here?"

Russia beamed at him, glowing with joy. "Can I not visit my dear pen pal at my own leisure? Oh, and since you are wondering, it was your alien friend whom allowed me entry while he was collecting a postal box from your front steps!"

That _traitor._ "Aghhh," replied Alfred, and tried to strangle himself, dropping his car keys again in the process. "Don't give me this pen pal bullshit! I haven't seen any letters from you since before the new year, anyway! But that's not the point because I need to _go _right now, and hey are you responsible for this emergency, did you bomb my capitals or something? Is all this part of your plan?" He bent to retrieve his keys again but was intercepted by Russia, who wrapped his big dumb hand around Alfred's right after he managed to pick them up . Alfred briefly imagined how the entire city was burning to the ground as he dilly-dallied unnecessarily thanks to this stupid man, and felt a few vital arteries in his general brain area pop open and start spraying the inside of his skull like rat-bitten garden hoses.

"What is the rush, _Amerikaaa?_" Russia sang, swinging their locked hands around like a retarded pendulum and totally not caring about the United States of America's terrible impending crisis. "Do not be so distressed! Let us play a game, _daaa?_"

That was it.

Alfred was fucking pissed.

Did this stupid idiotic idiot not care about _anything?_ Was it his life's goal to be an insufferable prick to _everyone _and get in the way of _everything_ and ruin _everybody's_ fucking life? Yeah, it probably was! Fucking _Russia,_ who cared only about his own fucking screwing around and fucking playtime and not giving a shit about other people's problems and just just just _god damn it._ Alfred had had enough. He had fucking had _enough_.

"Why," he breathed out slowly, trying to keep his temper under control, his voice shaking as he stared fixedly at the newspapers strewn across the floor, "Why do you _fucking_ – fucking – _hate_ me so fucking _much?_" And then the next thing Alfred knew he was hearing his own voice cry out, and after a nanosecond of confusion and wondering why, his brain caught up with his body and he realized he was in pain.

His hand was still closed around his car keys, and Russia's hand was still closed around his, and it was gripping him with an immeasurable strength, an immeasurable force, and his keys were digging into his palm so hard it seemed almost sure that their jagged edges had punctured his skin. Alfred bit his lip as the piercing, stabbing pain coursed through his seized up muscles and, trying to rip himself away, he looked sharply up at the stupid Russian's face to ask/scream what the fuck he thought he was doing, but his voice caught in his throat before a single sound could escape.

Russia's eyes were cold and hard and dark and despite his obligatory default smile still being plastered solidly upon his face, the glare that he had trapped Alfred's gaze in was something frightening, something angry and incomprehensible and threatening that made the striking hurt in his hand seem dull and harmless in comparison and that had completely stripped his vocabulary of words. All he could do was stare back, paralyzed, unable even to futilely try and tug their joined hands apart.

Then Alfred's phone vibrated loudly in his pocket, and, as if it were some kind of trigger, Russia released him automatically just before Alfred reached for his cell phone out of instinct and flipped it open.

"_JONES!_" someone shrieked from the other end of the line, deafeningly audible to both countries in the room even though it wasn't on speakerphone, "_Where in the goddamn world have you been? Some idiot up here took an enormous accidental dump on a critical project and it's gone public already, and we needed you here three years ago, get the hell over here right— Bertha, I told you, put them all on hold, I swear to god the news station has got spies in here—_" The man's voice faded into vague background shouting and Alfred lowered the phone. His hand was throbbing, aching.

Russia was, however, all smiles and sunshine again. "What a disappointment this is, dear America. You must leave, I take it? I suppose I shall wait for you at home!"

Alfred began to tell Russia to shut his mouth and not call _his_ house "home" because it sounded disgusting, but the voice on the phone had returned. "_I can't believe this, how could this happen –_ Jones, we need you, _now, _we've got to address this publicly as soon as possible before the media blows it out of proportion, _where in God's name are you?_"

"I'm – right now, I can't—" he started to protest, but the voice interrupted him immediately and with increasing tones of panic.

"You _can't? _ Don't tell me you _can't, _you've had Mr. P waiting on you for _two hours_, there is nothing in hell that's more important than this right now, I don't care if your house is under eight feet of water or your spinal cord has relocated to your ass,_ get down here now!_"

Yes, it was true, his presence was top priority at the moment, but Russia, but _Russia… _Alfred mouthed wordlessly at the cell phone, his blood pulsing in his veins.

"It would be wise to heed your associate's advice," Russia supplied helpfully, and Alfred glowered at him, pulling his own hair violently, distraught.

He _couldn't _– he _had_ to – _no_, no way – but he _had to—_

"_Fine!_" Alfred hissed at him. "_Fine – _I'm _leaving_, I'll be _back, _if I come back to a destroyed house you are so _dead, _just go sit in the room at the end of the hall, watch TV or something, touch _nothing,_ go _nowhere_, don't break the television, don't order Pay-Per-View pornography, don't screw up my game saves, and I'm just letting you know that Tony's like a security system built into one and if he catches you doing anything you shouldn't be he will ray gun your _ass_ to quarks, I swear to you, do you hear me, Russian Jockstrap Fed—"

"_JONES!_" screeched his cell phone.

Throwing Russia's cheerfully compliant face one last desperate glower, Alfred slammed the front door shut behind him and raced to the car parked in front of his house. "I'm _coming, _cool your damn jets," he told the annoying phone voice before flipping it closed and shifting his car into gear. He'd leave it up to Tony. He could put his trust into Tony. Tony would watch over the house. Tony would keep Russia in check.

But Tony had let Russia into the house in the first place, Alfred remembered, narrowly avoiding a dog in the street. What was he thinking? Or maybe he hadn't, and Russia had merely slipped in while Tony was getting the mail. Yeah. That was likely. Oh, please, God. Please, Tony. Please, _somebody…_

This emergency trip to work had _better_ be worth the effort, Alfred thought with rage as he ran a red light and a semi truck driver honked angrily at him. It had better be _damn worth it_, because by the time it would be over, he was probably no longer going to have a place to live.

* * *

Ivan watched the American run into his car, a newspaper stuck under his shoe and his shirt only half tucked in, bumbling around foolishly for a few dozen seconds before finally pulling away and driving dangerously down the street. The boy was charming in his mannerisms, but really did need some help, Ivan thought idly, getting down on his hands and knees to the floor. What a mess he was.

Indeed, and what a mess this _house_ was – old newspapers and tabloids and supermarket catalogues scattered all over the floor. Goodness! If he hadn't arrived when he did, America would probably have fallen over more than just the once and was likely to have broken something. A country as young as America was, understandably, always pumped full of vitality, but that didn't give him the right to be reckless!

There. It wasn't the neatest pile, but Ivan had done his best gathering most of the newspapers up again. He pushed the pile against the wall and straightened, dusting his hands off with satisfaction. Now the hallway looked much more orderly. Oh, if only the boy could be taught what a little tidying here and there could do…

Hmm, now where had America instructed him to wait again? The room at the end of the hall… ah, it must have been this one, with the very large flat screen television. Ivan walked around the room curiously. What he had thought were bookshelves lining the walls were actually an extensive collection of movie discs and console games. America certainly must have had a lot of free time at some point, although the chalky layer of dust coating every shelf suggested that they had not been perused for some while now. Only a small section of horror movies seemed to have been disturbed recently…

But Ivan wasn't interested in waiting quietly for America to come home. Here he had a golden opportunity, and what fun would it be to allow this chance to wither away without taking advantage of it? Ivan cautiously reentered the hallway, remembering America's supposed warning about his extraterrestrial housemate.

"Mr. Alien?" he asked aloud. "Are you present, alien? Can you hear me?"

There was no response, but then again, Ivan wasn't sure the alien could talk in the first place.

"Shall I take it that you do not mind my imminent wanderings, then, alien? And, though I do doubt the credibility of my dear America's kind admonition, I would rather prefer not being subjected to the experience of having my hindquarters broken down into atomic particles by your advanced armaments…"

Still nothing. Perhaps, then, it was safe not to limit himself to the confines of the movie room. Yes – a good idea. There would be no enjoyment in staying in one place, anyway!

Ivan removed his coat and draped it over a Victorian-style chair in the hallway. It was time to explore.


	10. Chapter 10

from russia, with love

* * *

Ivan looked down at his hands folded neatly in his lap, and at the picturesque sandwich held between them, as of yet untouched. Then he looked to his left, where Tony the alien was staring towards the rose trellis at the other end of the courtyard, a similar sandwich clutched by tiny gray fingers, slowly oozing extraterrestrial composure as his small stick legs dangled over the side of the wooden platform and swung in the chilly air.

How had the situation become like this?

His adventuring had started out commonplace enough. After America left, Ivan's primary mission was to go snooping around in the boy's personal quarters, and thusly indulged himself in the hilarity of probing through the dressers and closets trying to find a single undergarment that _wasn't_ emblazoned with different versions of the American flag. It certainly had been a challenge! Quite like... what was that phrase? Something about finding a needle in haystack, if he remembered correctly. It certainly fit the situation then! Although, when he first heard the saying, he had only been momentarily appreciative of its wisdom before wondering what on earth the needle was doing there in the first place. Hay did not just arbitrarily turn into needles when it was reaped and left in stacks. And why was someone trying to find the needle to begin with? Thinking logically, the person searching for the needle was likely to be the same person who lost it – and in that case, why had the needle gotten lost there? Surely normal people kept their sewing-related activities at home and not in the middle of stacks of hay, unless it had been someone who was prone to carry around a needle and thread all the time because of some irreparable tendency to constantly rip their clothes, which, incidentally, reminded him of his elder…

_Oh, Ivan_, he thought to himself, _how you do digress!_

Re-attending his reminiscing: after he had become suitably bored with arranging all of America's boxers chronologically in a timeline of American history (for the record, America did own _one_ pair of white briefs), Ivan had folded up each derisory article and replaced them carefully back inside the dresser, which clashed badly because the rest of the room was an absolute _sty_, and then proceeded to romp off into the vast unknown of house-regions as of then unexplored. America's house was _terribly_ fun! Such a large building – well, Ivan's house was bigger, yes, but the majority of those rooms were the _Union's_, and there wasn't really much use for all that space now…after all.

The areas following America's room had been _clean_ – a stark contrast, if any, though it was highly doubtful that America himself was responsible for the tidiness. Ivan did harbor suspicions about that alien, however…

His interest had been suitably captured when he had come upon what seemed to be a storage room for old uniforms. They hung, labeled and museum-reminiscent, from all four walls – _"US Army"_,_ "Navy"_,_ "Confederacy"_ – and Ivan had twisted his scarf in his hands and laughed to himself because, really, America was still so _young_, and yet the two of them were just so _similar_ (however sordid that was). And then Ivan saw the dilapidated boxes that had cascaded their way out of a closet in the far corner of the room, and he had opened it further in curiosity, and then he had been even _more_ amused because the rumpled battle uniform that had been unceremoniously shoved in amongst piles indiscriminate closet junk instead of displayed like the others in the room was labeled _"Colonists"_. _Oh_, America.

Then he had found the jacket.

"My, my," he had been unable to help saying aloud, "Privet to _you_, old acquaintance!" It was America's coveted old bomber jacket – the leather was lighter than Ivan had remembered it, distinctly cracked and pockmarked from ages of wear, the star emblem faded with the passing of time. As he held the jacket up to see it better, he had become acutely aware of just how quiet it was, and how heavy his wool scarf felt on his shoulders. It had dawned on him, at that moment, that America's threadbare jacket couldn't have been around for much more than a century, and he had remembered something America had said.

"_It doesn't look that old. Your scarf, I mean."_

But none of that explained how _had_ Ivan had ended up sitting on the borders of America's courtyard with the small gray alien named Tony and a plate of sandwiches between them. This current situation had, in fact, arisen as a result of several events following:

As Ivan had continued to explore, a reoccurring motif he began to notice more and more were that not all of the paintings hung throughout the hallways were copies of famous historical works. Here and there, he would come upon a picture of a flower, a cat, a lake – each of varying subject and detail, but all carrying the same single quality – they were all strangely precise. _Analytical, _if he were to go that far. And then there was also the occasional brush or paint tube that he would see lying around, and then there was the irregularity of the paintings' placements, and then there was America standing in the room Ivan had just walked by, and then—

"Dear America," Ivan had said in surprise, "When did you return?" (Hopefully America hadn't been watching when Ivan was occupied with being foolish in his underwear drawer.)

But America had given no response, which had been a compelling a reason as any for Ivan to enter the room and approach him in the dim light, and he had discovered that it was not America. It was a _painting._

And yet, so incredibly accurate and _lifelike_ – from the glint of the boy's glasses to his complexion the hair, which looked as though it had been painted strand by strand. Perhaps it had, if the tweezers and bags full of skeptically hair-resembling things on the worktable behind the canvas had anything to say for it. Painting-America hadn't been alone in the room, either – it seemed Ivan had found the source of all the analytical-looking artwork he had seen thus far, and he had been just about to turn around to switch the lights on for a better look when a small gray someone had done it for him.

"Good day, alien," Ivan had greeted. Tony had blinked at him, wearing a smock, and under his thin arm a bundle of paintbrushes peeked out of a postal package.

Ivan had blinked back, and asked, "Did you do all this?" and when he received no response whatsoever, added "It is _very_ good." At that, Tony had blinked at him some more, cast his smock off onto a nearby stool, turned and vanished without warning for a good five minutes, and then just as inexplicably reappeared with a plate of sandwiches, gave Ivan a stare that seemed to say _Follow me_, and led him to the courtyard.

Which brought things to the present.

Ivan looked down at the sandwich he was holding once again. If anything, it was admittedly the most beautiful sandwich he had ever seen; immaculately layered, and cut with diamond-edged precision. Quite possibly it was a perfect 45˚-90˚-45˚ triangle. He had only taken it out of politeness, though – he didn't really know what to do with it. Glancing over once again, Ivan was filled with speculation at the perfect sandwich Tony was also holding. The alien had no mouth for all he could see. How was he going to eat it? Or was Tony, like Ivan, also only holding it for politeness' sake? In that case, this was seemingly going to become pensively awkward pensively fast.

It was a rare, rare, _rare_ thing for Ivan to feel awkward in any situation, but goodness gracious, this alien was doing a _very_ remarkable job at instigating it. Oh, what should he do, Ivan mulled to himself. There was no dear America with him to go Babelfishing around in this incomprehensible puddle!

Hm, that was right, wasn't it? America – this was _America's_ house. Ivan was here in America's house, sans America himself; he had indeed gotten a smidgen caught up in the fun of exploring to seriously think about his situation on a grander scale, but really, he was _alone_ (well, perhaps not quite alone) in _America's house _right now, he had already vanguarded his way into such a scene already, it was slightly absurd, to be honest! Perhaps he had overshot his goal? But, Ivan reminded himself, he hadn't had a goal to begin with, and America was just so _interesting!_

He wondered briefly if America's hand was fine.

The things America said were so funny, the expressions on his visage were so endearing, the way his mind seemed to work was so cute, his reactions to things were just so _entertaining_, they sincerely were, and Ivan wasn't sure whether America was unpredictable or not. And then, suddenly, though he didn't know why – obviously it was the result of his own train of silly thinking, and possibly it was the still and emptiness of the not-quite-thoroughly explored house, and probably it was some sort of desire to break the silence between him and America's sandwich-making alien friend – Ivan became aware of his own mouth opening, and, thoroughly startled, heard his own voice begin to admit one of many thoughts that belonged solely and securely inside of his own head.

"I do not like him."

For the first time since they had sat down on the wooden border, Tony turned to face him, slowly and with no discernible change of expression. (Ivan's eyebrows raised themselves of their own accord upon noticing that Tony's sandwich had had a bite taken out of it. How had he missed that action? When did it happen? _How _did it happen?) But the fact that they were now sharing eye contact seemed to portray some sort of arisen interest of the space-oriented kind, and Ivan told himself, _Well, goodness, there is nothing I have to lose._

He'd already instigated his own imprudence, after all, and so Ivan elaborated, "That is one of dear America's little delusions he is playing host to, da? He believes a possible reason for my frequent accompaniment of him could be because I harbor romantic feelings for his person?"

Tony blinked once, slowly. Ivan took that as an affirmative response and smiled.

"Such suspicions are false. America thinks of bit too highly of himself, I am afraid! Though, I suppose that _is_ the basis of his character." He paused. "Shall I disclose to you the true reason why I am presenting myself as a reoccurring pestilence?"

Tony watched him.

"I was _bored_," said Ivan, and he tapped his knuckles against the wooden platform and looked at Tony out of the corner of his eye to see what he thought about it. (The sandwich had progressed to half-eaten now. _How…?_) But the alien looked exactly at peace with the world as he ever did. And maybe that was why Ivan felt as though he was suddenly at liberty to tell Tony anything and everything – or maybe he was merely being seized by a fit of inebriated stupidity, as a result of being exposed to the inanity-ridden miasma that coursed through America's house like a heartbeat for an excess of time. And then, because the alien hadn't turned away yet, and Ivan was starting to favor the notion the more he pondered it, he decided it might not be a poor idea to allow his mouth to take control and divulge whatever it was that crossed his mind. So he did.

"America is just such fun! I cannot say whether or not this came as unexpected – perhaps a combination of both? To be honest, he was not my first choice, but after the initial contact I have found him to be _quite_ the adorable playmate. Oh, the way his mind works, and the things that he does! But I do I worry if I have already become too involved in this pastime?

"It is a _game_, after all."

Tony swiveled his large red orbs away and stared back out into the courtyard. Ivan mimicked the action. It looked as though the courtyard had served as a garden – America's precious garden, was this it? – in sunnier times. Weed shoots were already poking through the diminished churls of snow still clutching onto the flattened grass. "And just a short while ago there was dear America whining about the cold weather," he murmured on the offbeat. "Spring has come so quickly, hm…"

Shockingly, Tony _nodded_.

Goodness! (He only nodded _once_, yes, and very slowly at that, but still, this was a legitimate development!) (Where did the sandwich go?) Experimenting, Ivan also said, "It is nearing the time for flowers in this country, hm…" Shockingly, Tony nodded once again. (Then he picked up another sandwich triangle. How on earth was he even eating the things? Or perhaps 'on earth' was the wrong way to look at the issue… Ivan replaced the sandwich he had been holding back onto the plate between them. Maybe he'd be able to witness its disappearment firsthand.)

"Out of piqued curiosity, is this little 'gardening hobby' of America's a normal occurrence? I must say I am still skeptical of his ability to perform any task not related to being a fool!"

Tony didn't nod. Possibly Ivan had already used up his two free tokens and would have to wait 24 hours before experiencing any more responsiveness. It was perplexing as to how America was able to understand him at all, without any words or even gestures as hints. "Then again, America is quite a perplexing person to begin with…"

Or rather, paradoxical. Ivan couldn't decide. The American was, undeniably, _terribly_ compelling to be with. And yet, sometimes, he could be incredibly, _incredibly_ wearisome. Ivan enjoyed his dull and obnoxious simplicity like a bullfighting match or a classical ballet, he enjoyed making fun of the boy because really making fun of him was obligatory, but those moments when America's foolhardy pigheadedness truly showed through, Ivan contemplated if the mildly satisfactory entertainment was genuinely worth the irritation; sometimes, it just drove him to the ends of his patience and really it was fairly disgusting how _stupid _America always was and always has been, especially during this war and that war and the other war and how he never seemed to even _try_ to utilize a single cell of his brain for intelligence-oriented purposes at all and to be honest the more Ivan played this game and the more time he was spending with America the more and more he was finding the blond, glasses-bearing fool intolerable because goodness gracious what an idiot what an idiot what an idiot.

But then again – _paradox_ – at the same time, Ivan felt more ironically attached with every unexpected new speech bubble that escaped the blond, glasses-bearing fool's blond, glasses-bearing mouth.

"…America says the most curious things, sometimes." Ivan had actually never planned for his game to advance to direct contact – the letters were the original concept, and quite a good one, he had felt at the time. The first letter had just been on a whim – the game had not yet fully formed within his mind just yet, had not really and seriously been decided upon just yet, but then America had sealed his own fate with that most amusing response. And why had Ivan chosen to play this game via post?

Well, he thought it would be funny.

And America had reacted exactly as he expected. First the comical confusion, then the incremental paranoia – it was all according to calculation, to expectancy. It evolved to face to face confrontation (a slight deviation, yes), but still the same calculations, the same expectancy. However, then…Ivan didn't know. Something changed. He just didn't know. He did know, however, that, despite expecting it, America's insufferableness was nonetheless at maximum effect. A fair percentage of such insufferableness was due to America's one fatal flaw – his most drastic, most repulsive, most wearisome flaw, aside from his colossal ego, of course – his deplorable tendency to _assume_. He always made such stupid _assumptions,_ always assuming, rushing into decisions without even _thinking _about anything, it was just…

_Insufferable._ America was insufferable. Especially so, going so far as to ruin his most treasured…

Ivan raised the end of his scarf to eye level and pursed his lips, looking at the wine stain. No matter what he did, what products he used and what methods he tried, the blemish simply would not budge. It seemed to have become quite amorous of the lightly-colored wool fibers and was flatly refusing to become parted from them.

"_It doesn't look that old. Your scarf, I mean."_

He stroked the stain's surface. America was intriguing, so intriguing.

"Tell me, alien, how old does this scarf appear to be?"

Tony observed the scarf, then observed Ivan. He offered no suggestion, comprehensive or otherwise. Ivan chose to interpret Tony's nonexistent reply as _Doesn't look that old to me._

"Not very much at all, does it? Ten, twenty, thirty years, perhaps? I have gone to many lengths to take the utmost care of it since childhood, and yet it would not still be in such a condition… And as difficult as it may be to believe, I took no notice of this at all until _America_ of all people pointed it out to me. How shameful!"

The alien was leaning towards the scarf now, studying it closely with large and emotionless crimson eyes. What was he looking at? The…wine stain, it seemed like? Tony seemed very interested in the stain for some reason, and, surprisingly, reached out his non-sandwich-occupied hand (wait a moment – both of his hands were unoccupied – had he eaten the second sandwich already? How could Ivan have possibly not seen it happen?) towards the scarf, towards the stain, as if to touch it—

"_Please_," Ivan said, smiling, moving his scarf away, "Do not. This may be the second time I am telling you this, Mr. Alien, if my memory is operating correctly." Tony continued to stare at the stain, but he did withdraw.

Ivan sighed, winding the wool around his fingers. "Did you know, alien? My sister gave this scarf to me. It was her treasure, but I was cold, and I was a child, and being a child I naturally had no sense of humility or 'toughing it out' as they say, and so she gave me this scarf. Her treasure."

He draped his sister's treasure, _his treasure_, around his neck once again, and for a moment could imagine that it was _her_, her hands that were tucking in the ends, her hands that were patting the scarf against his throat while her voice would tunelessly hum _Sorry, Mr. Winter, you're not invited today_, that little song that she liked to make up as she went along until none of the lyrics made sense anymore and child Ivan was giggling far too much to feel the chill. She was – she still was – such a kind person. Such a warm person. A warm and kind person, and Ivan always felt…well, it would be arduous to explain, even to himself. His…dream? She was his dream? No, but that was wrong, it was something he couldn't seem to put into words, even Russian words, even into definite _thoughts_, but… she had always been so good to him. She had always been so warm to him.

"Of course, I am sure Ukraine feels nothing but hatred for me now."

His eyebrows rose and, taken aback, Ivan looked at his arm, the source of the soft touch that he had just been unexpectedly dealt.

Tony was patting his arm.

It looked so ridiculous Ivan could not suppress a giggle. "My, my, Mr. Alien, what a comforting creature you are! What a shock."

Tony cocked his head at him and Ivan shook his in return. What a funny conversation he had gotten himself into (not to mention an entirely one-sided one). "But, it is understandable. The fault is mine. History is a daunting thing, da? And yet, without it, where would we be? No place at all. If anything, I should be offered punishment rather than consolation – if that is even what you are doing." He paused a moment to consider. "Perhaps I am, in truth. Self-punishment, penance for my actions – really, I no longer have a right to those _dreams_, do I? Even referring to her by _name_, even wishing to— well. Too forward. It would be too forward. I should not have the right. And then, there is Natalia; something else entirely...

"You know, it seems that the longer this game continues, the more I discover that, truly, America and I are quite, _quite_ the same…Very unsavory, would you not say?"

After a short pause, Tony graced him with another nod. A nod. Signifying agreement. This extraterrestrial had an evil side to him after all, apparently! Ivan shook his head. Everything was much too funny. Tony was much too funny. Thinking about Ukraine was much too funny. Thinking about America's similarities with him was much too funny.

Stretching his arms behind his back, he mused, "_Angliya_, is it…"

Tony was watching him attentively now. _Attentively_ – there was a noticeable difference. Was England that remarkable of a topic? Ivan looked at him wanly. "How interesting, hm?"

Russia and Ukraine, America and England. Positively comic. Slightly outlandish. But it wasn't just this, wasn't just their silly little emotional issues with significantly-other countries. Adverse as Ivan was to admit it, despite America being as huge of a fool as he was – they were similar in _other_ areas as well. He couldn't pinpoint specifically what areas those were, but, they were there. They were certainly there. (How unfortunate.)

Ivan didn't like this state of affairs at all. But they were there, certainly there. _They were certainly there. _Just looking at it, oh, how entangled into everything he had become _already,_ and he had only started so very _recently_. He didn't want to pass the point of no return, but…

He wanted to keep playing the game.

It was plenty enjoyable, after all. America was stupid and annoying and made too many stupid and annoying _assumptions_ too much of the time, but he was fun to tease and to vex and his reactions to what he believed was evidence of Ivan's "feelings" for him were _awfully_ humorous. And then there were these things that Ivan kept discovering, about America, and perhaps in a roundabout, similarity-kind-of-way, about himself – discoveries of both wanted and unwanted make.

"You know, alien," said Ivan slowly towards nothing in particular, letting his words trail off as they were lifted and floated away by a cold breeze. "…I do not like America, as I have said."

Tony swung his legs back and forth as they dangled over the edge of the wooden platform. He was too short to touch the ground while sitting.

Ivan looked sideways at his wine-stained scarf. "But, I suppose, I do not _dislike_ him, either. Not _exceptionally, _for what it is worth!" The alien stopped his leg-swinging and peered over the edge of the platform, checking to see what his leg had bumped against.

"And I…wish to keep playing this game." Ivan paused, considering for a second.

Tugging the tall, dead weed that he had brushed against while swinging his legs out and away from the thawing soil, Tony threw it away into the yard and turned his attention back towards Ivan, waiting for him to speak.

"…Would that be alright with you, Mr. Alien?"

For almost a minute of stretched stillness, Tony the extraterrestrial gazed at Ivan placidly. And then he got to his feet, and then his small gray body quickly meandered back into the house, and then Ivan was left very much hanging.

…What did that mean? Was it meant to be a reply? Really, he didn't seem to be skilled at understanding aliens at all! He would think that, with all his extensive experience with deciphering prehistoric antilanguage (i.e. everything that America ever said, _ever_), he would be a suitable interpreter by now, but this Tony fellow was of a completely different class. But now Tony was coming promenading back, and he approached Ivan and held out his hand, and for a moment Ivan was under the impression Tony was trying to touch his scarf again (for whatever reason, anyway?), but, no.

But no. Because Ivan recognized that pose. After all, he himself had likewise extended his hand to America on more than one occasion – and so he too held out his hand, up and open, playing America's role this time, and Tony dropped something into his palm that caught a ray of sunlight and gleamed as it fell.

Ivan blinked at it. Surely…surely he was not understanding properly. "This is…"

Tony blinked serenely at him.

"…A house key?" Ivan asked, _slightly _more than mildly surprised, and Tony blinked at him again. "Am I to remind you that despite any emergence or instance of cordiality, for all intents and purposes, I am still somewhat of an _enemy?_ Not just to America, but in regards to most of the world? Do you realize this? No one can change the past, after all – as I say, history is history!"

Tony blinked.

This was…quite baffling. Did the alien realize what he was doing? Was this a sign of _trust?_ They had only met on one other occasion; this relationship was moving _terribly_ fast (blush)! Shaking his head, Ivan regarded the alien amusedly before pocketing the key. "I will consider this as my permission granted, then, but… I will not be using this, if you were harboring any queries, since… This game of mine, this game that was born from capricious monotony, is still a game played within reason – I know my limits. There are many, _many_ taboos that we countries, collectively, must obey, and I am not so unreasonable as to act out of line! Does that surprise you? Does it relieve you?"

Tony blinked.

Did this mean that Ivan _was_ trusted? Somehow, the doubt was still there. He was dealing with a life form not of this world – while Ivan, too, was not an ordinary human, he was still _earth-_born and _earth-_bound, and as much as he preferred to call himself an expert in space science, alien intelligence was out of his league, and so he just couldn't help doubting that Tony knew what exactly he was doing. Which was handing out his host America's personal security away for no reasonably justified cause to someone he had barely been acquainted with. "I really _will_ take this," Ivan told him, shaking the pocket that now held the house key.

Tony blinked.

"Are you sure?" Ivan asked, because he wasn't, not at all. He knew his limits, as Russia. He didn't want to overstep them, _as Russia_. "Really, Mr. Alien, _are you sure?_"

Tony blinked – he blinked again – and then he granted Ivan one more nod.

Well, well. "In that case, alien, are you implying that you have no problems with me doing as I please at all? So saying, that you are accepting equal responsibility for whatever misconduct that may possibly ensue?"

After blinking again, once, twice – three times? Yes, three times – after blinking three times, Tony raised his hand towards Ivan once, but this time there was nothing in his hand, nor was he reaching for Ivan's scarf, and, with a laugh because my my this was just becoming sillier by the moment wasn't it, Ivan grasped Tony's cool gray hand with his own (dwarfing it completely) and they shook.

Apparently (though Ivan was still rather unsure of what was happening or if Tony was actually aware of what he was doing), they were now partners in crime.

Ivan Braginski was out and away from America's house not long after. _Something has happened_, he thought, _Just now, with that alien_. Something significant. He didn't know what _expressly_ just took place – yes, he had explored America's domicile and America's undergarments, yes, he had talked at length with an unresponsive space creature, yes, he had obtained a key to said America's domicile and shaken hands with said unresponsive space creature, but that was only the face value. What had just happened carried _significance, _his gut told him, though he didn't know what that significance was. He had also just discussed his own circumstances at a regrettably sufficient length for the second time in not very long – first America, now his keeper alien friend; that was two instances too many. He needed to go and reflect on all this for while, and so would conclude his playing-with-America activities for the day (it didn't seem as though the boy was coming home from his little emergency any time soon, at any rate).

Disappointingly, it was only after he left when Ivan realized he had never asked Tony what in the world all those paintings were for.

* * *

The tall Russian man named Ivan whom Alfred was so adverse to hadn't even tried the sandwiches that had been made for him. Tony shook his head to himself as he flicked off the straggling molecules of double-hydrogen-single-oxygen compounds from the cleanly-washed sandwich plate and placed it onto the drying rack. But that wasn't a problem, since Tony had only made them as a display of human courtesy (also, he had been in a state of hunger). He'd been able to tell from the beginning, by taking note of Ivan's unfluctuating chemical balance, that the man held no desire for consumption of nutrients to begin with and that there was a 92.352% probability at the time that he wouldn't eat them. Tony knew.

He always knew.

The states of body and mind were incredibly basic to understand – uninteresting, even, although the logistics of the habits of man were often sources of befuddlement to him (air freshener? Censor bars? _Why?_), though this was what Tony had been slowly improving on anyway. Observing human behavior (in this case, country behavior, but in his host's case both were equally erratic), studying it, comprehending it, becoming entirely fluent in it – this was his undertaking.

And the one called Ivan had praised him on it. All of his data replication regarding the visual elements of reflected light on this planet, or to use the human term, _paintings_, were just mundane tasks he was obligated to complete and didn't find it necessary to alert Alfred to. But interestingly enough, the Russian man, without any preemptive provocation, had offered him positive words on his efforts, which Tony subsequently collected into his mental cache under the prefix of Ivan's character, and in addition, had imbibed Tony with the feeling of being _pleased_.

Tony tottered into the office, and noting the inefficient amount of clutter and the dire necessity for a dust upheaval it had been subjected to, brewed on his deliberations. Feeling emotions like pleasure were not an activity he would customarily become involved in. Emotions were something only used on infrequent occasion, such as imminent death or the birthing of offspring, but humans seemed to rely heavily upon them, too unadvanced to forgo their unnecessary crutch.

It was apparent that his continuous and uninterrupted presence around the subjects of study was affecting his own wavelength in an adaptive way. At diverse and unpremeditated times, he too would experience superfluous feelings such as pleasure (today), boredom (with Alfred), annoyance (at Alfred), vexation (regarding Alfred), and also…

The air twitched with a sudden new sound vibration, and Tony made his way to the entrance of the house accordingly, where a yellow-spectrumed figure began to close the front door behind him and was, according to Tony's passive evaluation, currently very low on ATP production.

"Where's Russia?" asked Alfred weakly. His tear ducts were apparently in imminent danger of activating themselves. Tony pointed to the door. "Oh. Good." His host then sank to his knees and began to strike his forehead against the wall, and Tony patted his calves placatingly. It was time to absorb the inescapable sound waves of American whining.

"So like," said Alfred in between moments of skull-to-wallpaper contact, "There's all that drama stupid dumbness going on overseas, right? And there's like, all these bases and secret factories for making crazy shit like WMDs and dangerous stuff, right? And we—" He stopped momentarily to rub his forehead, presumably in pain, before recommencing his previous action. "—We're like, we're always trying to find them and then cart them off and get rid of them so they can't blow us all up to high mother, right? Right, Tony?"

Tony nodded. Right.

Much too easily satisfied, Alfred continued, "So just last week or something, we found one of their plants where they assemble explosives and guns and shit and all these materials, right? I had to sign off on a bunch of papers for that too ugh! And so yeah duh, we seized it and moved anything majorly dangerous out for disposal, and apparently some high-ranking _moron_ who was overseeing the removal joked to a reporter like the moron he is about how '_having all these weapons on hand, we could probably destroy anything we want hur hur hur'_, and at first it was okay because it wasn't a live broadcast and we took custody of the tape for 'other' reasons, but now some _other_ moron went and _leaked it to the goddamn press_ and a bunch of world leaders including I don't even know who or how many, but yeah apparently they took that as a threat or something and they're all like _Oh hey excuse me United States Government Folks but are we to interpret this as a statement promising intentional armed aggression in the foreseeable future in that case we are very very very offended you guys are butts_, and we had to explain about the _moron_ being a moronic moron _shithead_ and how _sorry_ we were for the _huge_ misunderstanding and right now everyone is kind of flipping out to get the message around and make it obvious that this a-hole was _just kidding_ and that his comments are totally unrelated to our diplomatic-whatever before someone overreacts and cuts off all ties with our government, or even worse decides to send missiles into all our major cities and Fourth-of-July everyone into rubble before we moronically '_destroy'_ them I mean seriously greghhhhh."

Tony fanned his host with small and ineffective hands as Alfred refilled his lungs and blood cells with oxygen and relented his head/wall self-injuring. "And so, we just had like an emergency press-conference to '_dissipate various rumors stemming from the uncalled for comments committed by an individual blah blah'_ but apparently that's not enough and we've got to hold an official appearance to issue a public statement and formally apologize which is like in a few days and it's right before the next world conference so I don't even know how I'm going to be ready and _man_ I have to make part of the address and I hate public statements but boss is all like _Well Al sometimes the only way to solve things is with a public official statement to clear things up so too bad you don't have a choice buddy_ and Tonyyyyyyy…"

The one other emotion that Tony had begun to house since his arrival on this Earth was _affection_ – in specificity, affection towards the young man currently exercising his larynx by moaning and carrying on and throwing himself into the alien's chest. There had just been something about him, a quality that couldn't be broken down into statistical terms, which had irrevocably caused Tony to approach Alfred and choose him as his observational test subject. In this world's time, Tony had already been hosted by Alfred for more than half a century. A short period of time, yes, but still long enough for Tony to have grown significantly attached to him.

But to be affectionate meant that Tony had to deal with whatever troubles Alfred had, be it one of his tantrums without valid foundation or one of his disaster-foreshadowing bursts of energy relating to a sudden spike of blood sugar levels or, in this case, one of his whining fits during times of stress.

Tapping Alfred's head, Tony instructed him to go and lay down, leading him by the hand down the hallway. Alfred only managed to say "Life sucks" one more time before collapsing face-first onto the bed, and Tony rolled him onto his back to make sure his living tissue didn't suffocate from breathing cotton blanket instead of air.

Upon exiting the room, he noticed that the distribution of mass of Alfred's dresser had changed, notably near the uppermost drawers, where the articles of genitalia-blocking clothing were stored. The probability of the Ivan-country being responsible was 84%, but he didn't mind. Alfred's flag-printed anatomy concealers _were_ understandably puzzling; despite seeing them on a surplus of junctures, the alien was always entranced with fascination whenever he did the laundry. And whenever he made him take a bath, and mended torn clothes, and dressed him in the morning, and…

Alfred was like a child, a foal, an offspring. That was as plausible a reason as any for the affection brought out in Tony – he was merely reacting from the natural maternal instinct caused by hormones all sentient living beings carried for their young. To put it in plain, human terms:

Alfred was a lame and pathetic little baby, and it made Tony want to nurture him on the off chance that he would become slightly less lame and pathetic.

Or:

Tony just liked him and wanted to give him what was best.

And at the current moment, he was finding this Ivan character vaguely fascinating. To give Alfred what was best… Ivan-Russian was actually reminiscent of Alfred at a subatomic level, and Tony was an expert at reading the states of body and mind, and expert at understanding emotions despite his own nonuse of them, and he just _knew_ that allowing them additional interaction might result in something positive, or at the very least, interesting to examine.

Tony always knew, after all.

Back in his workroom, Tony picked up the smock that had been abandoned earlier due to Ivan's presence and eyed his visual data analysis recreation of the host Alfred (or rather, his Alfred-painting). He had collected plenty of information with this convenient painting method already (photographs simply were incapable of capturing all of the dimensions of the subjects), and as he walked back through the maze of paintings he identified them by category: flora, fauna, land mass variance, cellular development, human composition, until he reached the shelf full of paint supplies, both mail-ordered and storage-salvaged, and other etcetera-type items.

He folded the smock neatly and placed it on the shelf, next to a peeling old dictionary with the golden letters _Oxford _embossed down the spine. The man named Ivan's words had been interesting on many facets – accurate enough were his descriptions of Alfred being entertaining, and on their similarity, and on his _game_.

Tony was passively content with continuing his mission of data gathering, and passively content with watching over his host for the however long he would remain stationed at his present location. But he, too, was interested in this game. Tony gazed unperturbedly at the small and lacy rose made of royal blue paper that lay on the shelf next to the old dictionary. Study and data compilation were all in a day's work, but, like Alfred, Tony shared a similarity with the Russian who had started the game as well.

He was also bored.


	11. Chapter 11

from russia, with love

* * *

Fuck life.

No, seriously.

Fuck life. Just fuck…fuck _everything._

_Go ahead_, Alfred challenged to no one in particular. _Say something retarded like _ohhh that's what she said!_ Do it. Then I will annihilate your face. I will annihilate it so badly you won't even notice it's been annihilated until man I don't even know._

Fortunately, there were no people with him in the corridor to say anything retarded, and thus were spared from having their faces annihilated so badly they wouldn't even notice it had been annihilated until Alfred didn't even know. He wasn't feeling too up to annihilating anyone's face anyway. In fact, he wasn't really feeling up to _anything_ at the moment. Even walking was an exertion. Yes, it was just one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, _but!_ The rug kept staticking to the bottom of his shoes, and these hallways were too short and he had to keep changing his direction (possibly he was just circling the same area over and over again?) and there were all these vases and potted plants and walls to avoid crashing into, and actually...where was he right now?

Okay, thought gathering time. This was a…familiar building. Conference building? Right – world conference. He was in…Germany? Or was it the States? Last time it had been France…which country was supposed to host the conference after France? It was either Germany or him, right? But if it were him, wouldn't he know?

Screw it. He didn't care.

Never had Alfred F. Jones felt more drained in his life. Well, yes, he probably had, but that wasn't _right_ _now_, and _right now_ was what mattered. And _right now_, he definitely felt kind of bluh. Really kind of bluh. As if he had contracted a poison status and was losing HP with each and every step. But he had to keep walking, regardless of whether or not he even knew where he was going…

So okay, he had managed to survive until...right now. But that wasn't a good thing. It wasn't a good thing at all. Because the more alive he was the more uncoolness he would have to suffer through, and the more uncoolness he suffered through the more everything else sucked as a whole. Why, why, _why_ were politics so complicated? Politics sucked. Alfred hated politics. Everything had to be all organized and legalized and formalized and a-lot-of-other-izeds and _god_ it took so much effort – and for what? Order and the peace of man? Maybe. And maybe it was just for public image.

Why did the whole damn world have to be so damn _finicky?_ Always jumping on every little mishap or action another government might happen commit – as if it were their business, anyway! Couldn't they worry about their own issues instead? They were like that extra guy who wasn't invited to a party because they were too annoying but _still_ went to the party and then started sticking their obnoxious elongated nose all up into everyone's junk as if they were actually part of the conversation and just refused to acknowledge the fact that they _were not wanted._

Okay, so maybe Alfred was getting a little hypocritical there. No, he wasn't above admitting it, though he was just going to make himself even more depressed at this rate, so best to drop that particular topic without arranging a rain date and stick to walking forward and thinking happy thoughts. _Happy _thoughts, right? Just one foot in front of the other. Maybe if he kept walking long enough he'd remember where exactly he was supposed to be going. Happy thoughts. Yeah.

But.

But _damn it_ (happy thoughts), politics were so _stupid_ and dumb and _dumb,_ so intricate and confusing and totally not necessary and couldn't they just go back in time (happy thoughts) and do it the old way? Name a ruler, demand outrageous taxes, and decapitate anyone who complained (very happy thoughts)? That went down pretty okay for a while, right? After all, hadn't it worked for England for all those yea_oh god damn it._

_Alfred F. Jones, you are a stupid shit,_ he thought glumly. Now was not a great time to think about things that could potentially be, well. _Upsetting_. He was plenty upset with just about everything else under the bulging blazing sun already, thanks very much, and didn't need to be dealing with the symptoms of other diseases such as mentallybeingdumbervosa on top of that. His whole…_England thing_, he supposed he'd call it, should have been caged up and tossed away permanently into the trash disposal already, but in his current shape, the gates to _that_ particular prison had been thrown wide open with a Hey Dumb Ridiculous Inner Turmoil Thing Weather's Nice Today Why Don't You Go Out For A Walk sign draped gracefully over the bars, and so if he wasn't careful…

A strand of hair intercepted his vision and he almost stopped in his tracks as it set off another imaginary flag. Oh. That was another problem, wasn't it? He hadn't been able to take a real, relaxing, more-than-two-minutes shower for a week now. Because he was terrified of _being_ in there; in fact, he was basically terrified of being in his entire house now. Because _Russia – _Russia had suddenly showed up at his place on that day, right? And for all intents and purposes he had been _alone_, right? And, plot twist of all plot twists, he had left _before_ Alfred had even gotten home, right? Th-that was suspicious! Really, super, extremely suspicious!

Had he set up traps? Robbed him? Maybe even (gulp) hid _cameras?_ That'd be just like him, damn it, those Commies, always spying and being dirtbaggy, and freaking Alfred out to the point that he was convinced he was being watched at all times. He _knew_ Russia had done something, even if Tony didn't say so! (Tony had started refusing to let him drink soda, too, so Alfred was doubtful the alien was even _trustworthy_ anymore.) And he had proof! His – his – his underwear didn't just decide to _fold themselves_ whenever they felt like it!

What was he going to do? Okay, well, for starters, continuing to walk seemed like a foolproof strategy (to keep calm, anyway). One foot in front of the other, if only for something to concentrate on. But what was he going to _do?_ Feeling like he was being ogled by creepy Russian eyeballs at all times of the day aside, and Escaped Inner Turmoil aside too, there was still so much work to take care of, so much _new_ work to take care of, and, oh god, that public apology had been so mortifying, and he'd been obligated to bring it up again at the world conference and go bowing and scraping around like a schoolgirl in denial, and thankfully most of the others had seemed understanding enough unlike their respective governments but still, but _still…!_

"_Alfred_," called England from around the corner. Alfred walked into the wall.

"Oomph," he said.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose dazedly, Alfred saw the snappily dressed and skeptical-looking Englishman approaching him with a briefcase in each hand. Oh no. Alfred wasn't prepared for this. Not at all. His thoughts had been elsewhere, this was too sudden, if he had had even a little warning then at the very least he'd be able to brace himself, to drill his brain on the strict code of conduct he himself had written ever so long ago on how to act around _this man _and remind himself to adhere to it, but he _didn't_, he _hadn't, _and—

Oh no. His – did he just – did his heart just – oh no, it _did_ – _his heart just sped up._ Oh no. Oh _no._ _What was he going to do?_

"…What are you doing?" England asked (and Alfred couldn't answer, because that was exactly what he was trying to figure out), raising his bountiful eyebrows at him and doing an excellent job of simulating caterpillars migrating north on his forehead.

_Oh, no,_ Alfred thought wildly, his heart thumping away with enthusiasm very much of its own accord, _Caterpillars don't even migrate, what the hell!_

This wasn't exactly an appropriate response to England's question, so all he could say was "Uh" in a small voice and hope to the greater powers that the heat would be kept from rushing up to his face as it was threatening to do.

England frowned and motioned for him to take the rightmost of the two briefcases he carried. "You left this behind, stupid git. If you're going to be storming out of meetings as soon as they're over for no reason, at the very least you could remember to bring your things with you."

Alfred took it, trying hard not to look England in the eye without being obvious. Casualness might have been more easily achievable had the other not been shorter than him – it was hard to act nonchalant when your head had to be craned upwards at a totally unnatural angle. "Thanks," he said miserably. He then tried to appear tremendously interested in the wallpaper that he had previously walked into while England scrutinized him.

Finally Alfred could no longer pretend that he had forgotten England was there. "What?" he asked, even more miserably.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"I watched your press conference."

_Public statement_, corrected Alfred in his mind, and he made a noise meant to be an acknowledging chuckle but sounded more like a pitiful whimper (the kind that cute and defenseless small animals made, just before they became dead). "Uh huh."

"To be honest, it wasn't really your best or most convincing…"

"Oh." Well. _Someone_ was being rude today, but then again Alfred was too preoccupied with the fact that England had just moved closer to him and was looking closely into his face to think about it very much.

"…But then again, your 'best and most convincing' leave a fair bit to be desired." England was smirking, but it was kind of hard to see where exactly he was deriving the hilarity from. Humor? Jokery? Were there such things here? If so, then please, someone, point it out. Because Alfred just wasn't seeing it. What he _was_ seeing was England. England's face. England's face that was oh god so close don't lean in so close oh god his heart couldn't…

"Oh."

"…What is the _matter_ with you today, Alfred?"

"Um." H-hold on. Don't get that close. Something in the pit of his stomach was squirming around unpleasantly and his chest organ was still pounding hard and with great gusto and somehow he had to – to lead England off. "Arthur," Alfred began bravely.

"What, do you have a stomachache? Scarfing down burgers all morning as usual, I'll bet? Or no – don't tell you me you _still_ haven't finished all your work! How do you even get by with that attention span of yours?"

Even if it wore a look that was scowling and full of scorn, England's face was still too close, he was so close, _so_ close_, _too_ close._ And – oh god – he shouldn't be thinking it, he _couldn't_ be thinking it, he never should have even allowed the thought to form half-assedly in his brain matter, but here it was in his mind, here it was being thought _at that very moment_, and he _was not allowed_ to be thinking such a thing – but _if Alfred were just to_…to lean _forward and down_, just a…just a bit over a foot…it wasn't far—

"—Don't tell me it's _his _fault," continued England disgustedly, suddenly turning his head to the side as he watched Russia appear at a distance, notice them, and immediately come their way with a jaunty _"Amerika!"_ "Oh, for…"

Alfred's vital functions had all but stopped. He was aghast at himself. Paralyzed with shock. He hadn't even heard what England just said, because all the available space in his thought-thinking-area was fully occupied with pure, unrefined, sheer horror. Had he just…_did he almost just…?_

_He almost just kissed England oh god his life was over._

"Why must Russia be— Alfred, what are you looking at? I'm over here. I know your eyesight is abysmal, but really…"

"I—"

* * *

Maybe it was just his leftover peevedness from listening to America's very distracted demeanor throughout the entire conference (one that America _himself_ was hosting, for shame). Maybe it was his new peevedness at America's lack of usual annoying luster. Maybe it was his peevedness at the various uncertainties he couldn't stop himself from mulling over about America's recent choice of interactees.

Arthur Kirkland settled on blaming it on all three maybes – he felt he had to talk to the boy. Hopefully America wasn't taking his taunts too seriously; they teased each other every time they spoke, after all.

But America was just so…unsettled. What was that guilty expression? What was that look in his eyes, that look that showed he wanted to say something but couldn't bring himself to do it? He'd had that same look before – in the days when he was still young and growing up, the days leading up to the start of the Revolution, and even during that final confrontation…

…But they weren't supposed to talk about that.

History wasn't important – the past was something to be done with and forgotten. The present and the future were nature's intended topic of focus, and that was, of course, exactly what Arthur Kirkland intended to focus on. Right now, his focus on the present was to snap America out of this unnatural mood, and his focus on the future was to find out from said American of any…_relationships_, or suchlike, that he might be…no, no, he didn't want to think about that. France could very well be right, of course (for once) – perhaps it was nothing.

But just as the thought had passed, that _Russian_ had to materialize from whatever twisted magical land he kept to most of the time, and Arthur decided that (regardless of his own suspicions that he wasn't saying for _sure_ could even be true, and that he wasn't saying for _sure_ that he was actually harboring in the first place), keeping America away from Russia would be a good idea in general.

And the frozen, terrified look on America's face – of _course_ his suspicions were wrong, that _proved_ it, thank goodness, Arthur was barmy to have even considered such a thing in the first place, ha ha, America was clearly reacting negatively to Russia's arrival and so it would be best to get away immediately and Arthur tried to distract the taller boy by jibing at his eyesight.

"I—"

America had opened his mouth, starting to say something, but whatever he had to say could be left until later when they _weren't_ in a Russia-inclusive environment. And so then Arthur followed up his taunt by plucking America's glasses off his nose, not expecting in the _least_ that America would do what he did next, which was burst into tears.

Oh, piss.

"No, no, no, what on – Al-alfred, what – what – what are you – why are you – no, _Alfred_, what—" floundered Arthur uselessly as America, crying loudly, sat onto the ground.

"G-g-god _d-damn _it," he was wailing, beating his fists upon his legs, "_Why _is _everything_ always…why d-does everything _always have to be so_ _waaahhhhhh haaaaaahhhhhnnnnhhhhhh…_"

"Oh, no, _don't_, Alfred, I was just having a laugh, I believed your public address, come on now…"

"…_Waaahhhhhhhhhhaaahhh…"_

What – what was he supposed to do? "Alfred, no, no, don't, please don't, see here, have them back, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, _Alfred_," Arthur pleaded, holding out America's glasses back to him. But America didn't take them, and, if anything, became even louder, his nose starting to run.

Oh great bloody swollen… Arthur swung around wildly with his hands on his head, not exactly sure of what he was searching for – something or someone helpful that he could grab and fix this situation: a box of tissues, for example, or a fire extinguisher, or a gnome (gnomes were surprisingly good at delicate scenarios like this) – and his eyes found Russia, who had stopped in his tracks and was blatantly making no move as far as Arthur could see to make anything better (such as chivvying on and _going away_), and that, coupled with the sure _fact_ that this was _all his fault_, was infuriating.

Fury gave way to revelation, and turning his back to the Russian, Arthur whipped down to his knees and cradled the hysterical America (whose nose was now dripping profusely and whose face was wrenched up in a most inelegant manner) in his arms. "_Gently, gently_," he murmured, and it was like nothing had ever changed – he was still young, America was still young, a mere toddling infant who was upset but nothing that a little caress and rocking couldn't cure. Arthur was back in his element. He had control. He _knew_ this situation. There was nothing unexpected or unpredictable about it; he had dealt with this countless times in the past, after all, and America was the _same_, the same as he'd ever been. Yes. Arthur knew this America, he was in _charge_ of this America, and yes, certainly, they'd had their riffs and croppers but he'd always be able to trust that America would never have anything to do with…well, certainly nothing to do with that _Russian_. He just knew he wouldn't. That was all that mattered.

Arthur groped in his pocket for a handkerchief, and found one – for what was a gentleman without his kerchief at every hour of the day – and dabbed at America's unattractively bleary and snotty features. "Come on, now. Enough whinging."

Pushing Arthur's ministrations away, America buried his face in his hands. His ears were bright red. "Fucking damn it," came sniveling and muffled from between his fingers.

"…Alfred—" Another crescendo of bawling erupted from underneath the palms pressed to the American's face. Exasperated, Arthur looked up.

Instantaneous was his decision that he didn't like what he saw. What he saw was Russia, who was still standing there, but that wasn't even the worst of it.

Russia's eyebrows were raised, and the expression on his face as he was observing Arthur tending to America on the floor was not embarrassed, or guilty, or triumphant, or mocking. What it was could only be described as…

_Mildly amused._

And that was disgusting.

"This is all _your doing_," Arthur hissed at him. "Do you find that _funny?_"

Russia's head dipped curiously for a semisecond, a gesture that Arthur could almost interpret as _Did I just hear you correctly?_ A small giggle emitted from his throat. "My doing?" he repeated, ridiculingly.

Arthur glared. "That's right."

Russia was staring at him unreadably, and Arthur contemplated, over the sound of America's pathetic weepiness, if he should yell at the man to just _leave_, for God's sake, but before he could say anything a smile had broken out over Russia's face and he had thrown his hands up in the air and shrugged with an _enormous_ flourish and an "If you wish," and then he made off.

Much relieved, Arthur turned back to hush America once more, tugging the boy's hands away from his face. Yet, abruptly, Russia spoke again.

"Though if I may provide a word of advice, Mr. England, it is likely you would benefit from watching yourself from this point forward..."

Arthur didn't know what that meant.

But it was clear from how America (whose ruddy, pitiful, much distraught face had just been uncovered) lifted his head, and how America was purposefully avoiding Arthur's gaze, and how America's eyes were following Russia as he disappeared down the hallway leaving ringing footsteps behind – it was clear that while Arthur didn't understand, America _did_, and that meant that America _wasn't_ the same child that he had once been, that Arthur had assumed deep down he had _always _been.

He wasn't the same America, and that meant that he _wasn't_ predictable, that Arthur _didn't_ have the ability to know and understand everything America did or thought or _became somehow involved with_, and that…

That meant Arthur Kirkland's fears were very possible indeed.

* * *

There was a photograph of a whale on one of the shelves.

A clean line was formed on the dusty glass as Ivan dragged his finger down the surface of the frame to see it better. It really was a whale. In a…swimming pool? And the background was made up of bricks that closely resembled the bricks of America's house. Hm.

Ivan glanced over at America, who was busily engaged in his work at the desk and seemingly ignorant of the fact that Ivan was standing in the middle of his office in the middle of his house in the middle of Washington, D.C. America hadn't said a word to him since Ivan had shown up – at Ivan's inexplicably random appearance in his office doorway, America had only appeared momentarily appalled before he quickly looked down at his papers and acted like nothing had happened.

It wasn't a problem. Ivan didn't mind. America, he surmised, must be feeling rather embarrassed about his little scene earlier, and so his obvious reluctance to even berate Ivan for being somewhere he didn't belong yet again was very understandable. That was why he was here in the first place!

"It is interesting," he had said earlier to a spade-holding, slightly soil-covered Tony, who allowed him entry before Ivan had even been able to ponder how he would get into America's house, and if he were going to have to use his entrusted house key after all. "Of course it was no fault of _mine_, but I cannot help but feel a small amount responsible…"

The aim of the game was just to have a little fun with America. Yes, seeing him reduced to a sobbing, nose-fluidy pile of refuse _was_ entertaining, but it wasn't _all_ that enjoyable. England had been the catalyst in triggering America's fit, but Ivan's frequent adding of stress to the American's plate probably had some say in things as well. (As a westerner would say, _Oops._) Besides, if America stopped doing anything save for being mopey and depressingly self-centered…he was going to become boring, and _quickly._

Thus, Ivan had bided his time after the meeting by returning to his hotel suite (these American hotels were awfully unimpressive) and amusing himself by turning the bathroom taps on and off for a couple of hours. Then he had come here. He wasn't quite sure what exactly he'd do _after_ coming here – apologize? Goodness, no, _that_ would be going a bit far, wouldn't it? Besides, he wanted to see what America would do after having made a degrading spectacle of himself. Ivan would have come to pester America, in any case; that was reasonably given considering it was America's turn hosting the world conference and his house was just a short promenade away.

So far, this was less interesting than expected.

"...Do you not plan to instruct me on taking my leave, America?"

America's pen scratching wavered _just so_ from its steady rhythm – he was surprised, no doubt, from the sudden breaking of silence – but soon resumed its pace. America did not look up. Ivan was ignored.

"…America," Ivan nagged, dropping onto the small sofa situated about a meter from America's desk and pulling up his feet so he was seated cross-legged on the cushion.

America did not make any indication that he had heard him, nor did he say anything about Ivan's shoes touching the furniture. (Then again, it was _America_, so he probably wasn't even one to care about things such as dirtying the upholstery.)

"Ameri_ka_," Ivan tried.

He was ignored.

"America."

No response.

"_Amerikaaa_."

No response.

"_Americaaaaaa_."

No response.

"_Amerikaaaaaaaaaa…"_

Oh! America's hand twitched!

"America," Ivan said again.

Hmm, America seemed at tad agitated. Had his hand-twitching caused him to script an error? Again, as a westerner would say, _Oops._

"_Amerika_," Ivan sang, getting into stride. "America. Amerika. America. Ame—"

America slammed his pen-holding fist down upon the desk with a colossal _BANG_.

He fixed Ivan with a very fierce death glare over the rim of his glasses. Ivan gave him his purest smile. Finally, something was happening!

America drew in a deep, harsh breath through his nose, and looked at Ivan even more angrily than before (if possible), as if he were about to shout at him, explode at him, throw something at him – then dropped his head sharply and went back to his work.

Oh. How disappointing.

But America wasn't writing anymore, he was resting his forehead on a hand and giving the papers in front of him a stare-down as if it were essential to intimidate the sheets into submission. It seemed Ivan had broken his concentration. Once again, as a westerner would say, _Oops._ (Though he could not truthfully say he actually felt any remorse.)

Maybe this time… "How are you, America?"

...No? Then perhaps… "It is spring, is it not?"

America didn't respond, but Ivan caught his lowered eyes flickering to the corner of his desk. There in a paper cup stood a single daffodil immersed in soil, looking slightly out of place amongst the stacks of files and writing utensils and paperweights shaped like eagles grasping branches and Abraham Lincoln's head.

"What is that, America?"

It was to no avail.

This visit wasn't fun at _all_. Ivan sighed. He wasn't getting _anywhere_ good, and yet he didn't want to leave feeling like nothing had been accomplished. Was this the end of things? Had he gone through all the trouble of being annoying towards the most annoying of countries for all these months just to have his game trickle out and pass away in as substandard a way as this? To think he had had such high hopes when penning that very first letter…

"Hmm," said Ivan out loud, since America was going to ignore him anyway. There was stationery scattered all over the room, and what felt like a pen or pencil of some sort had been poking his leg for some time now that he hadn't yet bothered to remove. Scavenging a pad of memo paper from the immediate ground, he held it up towards the desk. "America, may I use this?"

America spared him a lightning-quick glance before ignoring him again. Ivan allowed himself to be flattered by the generous attention (though America had likely just been making sure Ivan hadn't been talking about his wallet or some saucy magazine or other). In any case, he took America's silence as permission, and fished the discomfort-causing object he had been sitting on from under him, which turned out to be a mechanical pencil.

The silence had just started to settle, and America had just begun to write again, when a small, folded piece of paper sailed through the air and landed on his desk. America paused and stared at it, then glanced over at Ivan, who was giving the boy as shining and expectant a look as he could muster.

With a suspicious air, America graced him by slowly unfolding the paper. Ivan waited patiently as the words he had written inside were read:

_Dear America, _

_Winter is over in your country. Are you not glad?_

_Silently, _

_Russia_

America didn't immediately move to toss it away into the waste bin, so thus far Ivan's new idea was still potentially legitimate. And – oh, my! – America was writing something on it, how exciting!

The newly crumpled-unbeautifully-into-a-ball paper was thrown carelessly back at Ivan, and bounced off his shoulder onto the carpet. He retrieved it and smoothed it out of his knee. Underneath _Russia,_ America had messily scribbled a word.

_sure_

Well, it certainly was a start!

Turning the creased sheet over, Ivan wrote another message on its back side.

_Dear America,_

_Why does your desk in its current state have a flower on it, and why is it contained within a cup?_

_Curiously,_

_Russia_

He folded it compactly and sent it America's way. America didn't pick it up immediately, and Ivan wondered for a moment if the miniature letters weren't going to be responded to anymore, either, but America finished making a note on whatever document he was reviewing, pushed up his glasses, and reached for the memo paper.

Ivan caught it in both hands as it flew back (crumpled, again). _Tony,_ it read simply.

_Dear America,_ he wrote on a new memo.

_For what reason?_

_Still curiously, _

_Russia_

America responded with _garden._ "Is that to say your alien friend is working in the garden today?" Ivan asked him, but America didn't reply. It was evident that a non-speaking rule had been established at some point.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_It was very nice of the alien to bring you a flower while you are working and cannot go outside with him._

_Touchingly,_

_Russia_

_

* * *

_

_sure_

_

* * *

_

_Dear America, _

_Is it not still a bit too early in the season for flowers to be blooming?_

_Confusingly,_

_Russia_

_

* * *

_

_Tony_ (what on earth was that supposed to mean?)

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Incidentally, can he speak?_

_Inquisitively,_

_Russia_

_

* * *

_

_yeah_

_

* * *

_

"_Really?_" Ivan said upon reading America's message, very much startled. "Is that true?" But the alien didn't even have a mouth! How…shocking!

America didn't say anything.

* * *

_Dear America,_

_Does he speak English? Is he very fluent?_

_Surprisedly, _

_Russia

* * *

_

_yeah_

_

* * *

_

_Dear America,_

_Do you speak with him often?_

_

* * *

_

In his anticipation, Ivan had forgotten to add the closing of the letter to his message before sending it to America. "Oh, thank you," he said upon receiving the reply, gratified to see that the boy had taken the liberty of writing in _Dumbly, Russia_ for him before his own message, which was _Not really._

_

* * *

_

_Dear America,_

_If that is the case, how are you informed of his fluency?_

_Gratefully, _

_Russia_

_

* * *

_

America, apparently aware that he was being watched carefully whenever it was his turn to write something, shrugged. Ivan waited, but America did not write anything back.

Ivan was about to start a new message when America suddenly spoke, which he had not done since Ivan arrived – quite a while, indeed.

"He used to talk to Toris, I think. And—" he seemed to struggle with something for a second, "—Arthur."

"Oh?"

"With Arthur, it's more like – like swearing though. For some reason." America had put his pen down.

Ivan leaned back in his seat. "Yet he enjoyed speaking with Lithuania, I gather?"

He saw that _shift_ – America could be rather acute, on occasion, after all, and clearly he had noticed just like that last time – it seemed he, like Ivan, set a high store by the unspoken rule of countries' names and titles – America's ears had picked out how he had called Lithuania by his title.

"I guess."

On another note, hooray, it seemed that like Tony the alien, America _also_ had the capacity to speak! Finally, this humdrum was dissipating!

"…What do you want, Russia?"

Ivan played with his scarf. It was harder to see the wine stain in this lighting – the window directed most of its sunlight down at America's desk. "Has my turn to present inquiries been terminated so soon?"

"…You're obviously here for some reason. I won't even ask how you got in my house again."

"Da, indeed…" Ivan considered for a moment. What _was_ he here for? "Entertain me," he decided, brightly.

America gave him an incredulous stare – reminiscent of the sort of gaze that a person would give to someone else suggesting that they devoid themselves of all garments and dance the prisyadki in a public square. Very dubious, very _Chto-za-huy._ No doubt Ivan himself had worn that expression on many an occasion, whenever _that girl_ had produced a new suggestion, be it something she insisted they do together or a wedding idea her heart was entirely fixated on…

"You are very lucky, Amerika," Ivan told him, and America stopped appearing incredulous and started appearing mystified instead.

"Huh?" he replied, not sounding exceedingly intelligent in the least.

Wiggling his index finger coyly in America's direction, Ivan said sardonically, "Well, firstly, you seem _quite_ at ease despite your humiliating little tear duct display earlier today…"

America looked scandalized. With a disgusted huff (though it didn't do much to hide his clear embarrassment, poor creature), he slapped a folder open on his desk and began to attack it furiously with his pen, apparently working himself up to finally deliver his unwelcome visitor some violent verbal abuse. However, oh no, Ivan wasn't done just yet!

"But, you were _held_, were you not?" he said, and cocked his head impishly as he met America's somewhat noncomprehending eyes, watching the progress of the boy's sure flashback to a few hours prior, when he had been in a wretchedly gauche position, and when England had, in some awkward attempt to be appeasing, put his arms around him, and my my my, it _was_ funny how uncomfortable the American suddenly looked at this realization!

"_Lucky you,_" Ivan crooned at him.

America's palm made its way to his face as if he were massaging a headache. "…What are you saying?"

Ignoring him (the boy had ignored him enough for one day, and surely they had to take turns), Ivan sang airily, "Oh, goodness, dear America, I am terribly envious of your expertise! Perchance, would you be willing to share your (very rare and unexpected) enlightenment with me?"

"…What are you _saying?_"

Ivan folded his hands and inclined his head in mock seriousness towards America. "Well, Mister Senior Professor," he intoned gravely, "I seem to find myself caught in the midst of a small quandary. Would you listen to me?"

The dubbed senior professor replied with a noncommittal and/or derisive, "No."

"You see, there exists a lovely young lady with very strong affections for my person and who is not averse to using very strong methods to force her feelings to be reciprocated…unfortunately, however, this is not possible."

America tried to fend off Ivan's relentlessly expectant beaming and failed. "…Why's that?" he grumbled reluctantly.

"Hmmmm," Ivan pondered, tapping his fingertips to his chin in a very fake manner. "Who could know? Maybe it is because the young lady in question happens to be my younger sister. Maybe it is because only negativity could result from our hypothetical relationship. _Maybe,_" he said, and at this, he chose to stare very hard and noticeably at America, "it is because there is _someone else_ I like?"

As predicted, the boy did not look tremendously happy to hear this at all. Ivan could only barely keep himself from breaking into giggles at the American's idiocy. Such a weighty assumption to make…

"_But_," he sighed overdramatically, shrugging his shoulders and pretending he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary to cause America distress, "I am lacking in a clear action to take. Natalia, you must understand, has a tendency to be – well – _aggressive –_ and while her feelings are unrequited, this by no means is to signify that I don't harbor a very deep love for her, as a sister. Outright rejection would crush her heart thoroughly…that is, if she does not entirely reject my rejection. Thus, dear America, do advise me…what do you have to say on this?"

"You're stupid," America told him immediately.

My, how unexpected.

"Please, dear America, feel free to elucidate!"

"You don't want to _hurt_ her? Is that what you're trying to say here? Sorry, I couldn't tell, all your pointless posh vocabulary kind of got lost in translation from your ugly Russian accent. But that's like…man. That's so stupid. Do you think it'll work out if you just keep leading her on like nothing's wrong? That's shit." As an afterthought, America added, "And get your feet off the damn sofa."

Cheerfully, Ivan did as he was told. "But I am not _'leading her on'_ as you say! Countless are the times I have made attempt to tell her we cannot—"

"That's _shit,_" America interrupted heatedly, becoming more incensed with every syllable. "Two seconds ago you just said you didn't want to 'break her heart', you _pussy_. _Obviously_ you're not trying hard enough. You're just being an asshole letting her think that _maybe_ she still has a chance, _maybe_ it doesn't matter that you're her brother, _maybe_ you'll be okay with it if she just tries hard enough, _maybe_ you _do_ like her – and _maybe_ that's why you haven't told her, stone-cold, flat-out, hands-down, _No. _Why would you let her think that? You're so stupid. You want to know what you should do? You should tell Belarus straight to her face that it's out of the question, and you know what, if you totally destroy her it'll still be better than letting her believe a lie, and if she _kills_ you with that batshit crazy meat cleaver of hers, well, at least it'll give the rest of the world a reason to have a party. You're so _stupid._"

"Are you speaking to me or to England?" Ivan asked dryly, smiling.

America gaped at him, breathless after his tirade and presumably so outraged he was at a loss for words. Ivan's smile grew broader. America _was _cute, wasn't he!

Regardless… Ivan swept an extravagant bow (as best as he could manage while still sitting) with much twirling of the hands and graciously thanked America for his wisdom. "I graciously thank you, dear America, for your wisdom. I will keep your words within close reach in my mind."

He received an irritated snort in return, and not for the first time since his arrival, Ivan wondered how it could be that America _still_ had not told him to get out of his house yet.

"Go away, Russia."

Well, that was one question taken care of before a reason could even surface!

"How can you say that, dear America? Here we have been chatting so very _intimately…_"

"Yeah, sure, and look at how much I have _not_ gotten done with you here being a dipshit," raged America, spreading his arms to indicate the piles of paperwork that surrounded him like a wall. Ivan couldn't see what the fuss was about; he had done _considerably_ larger loads in his time without issue.

"Would you like me to assist you?" he asked good-naturedly.

America looked at him sharply. "That's—"

"—'Against the _rules'_?" Ivan finished for him. "Da, I am quite aware – you need not _accept _my offer, Amerika!" He shrugged unconcernedly. "But, really, do you ever stop to briefly utilize that useless brain of yours and wonder, what are these '_rules_' we countries follow so religiously? No one has ever officially declared them to be rules. Perhaps it is us individuals making them up and fooling ourselves into believing them."

"…Sure."

"Oh, I apologize. Was that too philosophical for you?"

America didn't say anything and went back to reading his papers. Ivan hummed a little Russian song and allowed the boy a bit of conversational silence. They _had_ discussed plenty for him to reflect on for a while, and besides, he wasn't _completely _incorrigible – he knew America had plenty of things to take care of, and there were still two more days of the current USA-hosted world conference to go through. His boundaries were prevalent in his mind, and his game wasn't meant to have any effect on actual official matters. That certainly would be far from good.

"Hey," said America unexpectedly.

"Da?"

"Why did you say that?"

"Are you referring to what I said earlier being too philosophical for you? Did I not say it because you, dear America, are rather lacking in genius qualities?"

America pursed his lips. "No, I mean what you said to Arthur – you know, England – what you said to him – before."

Ivan thought. Something he had said to England…was it what he had said during America's crying performance? "About watching himself being in his best interest?"

America said nothing, which by now Ivan knew to understand as a yes.

"Why did I say that, hm?" he mused. Had America been thinking about this the whole time? Perhaps this was why Ivan hadn't been shown the door upon his entry… "Well…who knows?"

Ivan smiled at him some more, and America frowned at him some more, and then the silence returned some more, and then America went back to his work some more—

"Thanks," said America to the surface of his desk, so muted and obstructed that Ivan was almost positive he had just imagined the sound.

"Thanks? For what I said to England, Amerika?"

"…No," America muttered to his pen after a pause.

"Are you thanking me for offering to help with your work earlier, then?"

"No."

"Then, what?" asked Ivan, quite puzzled by now.

America wrote something down, he flipped a page, he put the page inside a file folder— "—Chocolate," he mumbled incoherently to the folder (it seemed that all of his speech was directed at the various inanimate objects that sat within reach).

Ivan blinked. " 'Choc…' _Prasite?_"

"…You bought me a hot chocolate one time. I never said thank you. So…thanks."

Ivan stared.

His staring stretched on for so long that it was _America_ who finally looked at him, wondering why exactly he wasn't saying anything, and when Ivan was subjected to a glimpse of that undeniably dense and undeniably embarrassed look on the idiot American boy's face, he could do nothing to stop himself.

"_Oh, my god,_" was all he managed to gasp out before his hands came up to cover his face and his body doubled over in entirely helpless laughter.

_America had just_ – did he _truly, seriously_ just – _oh, for_ – that was just – oh, _god—_

America himself, in the meantime, was clearly not seeing the same comedic aspects that Ivan was. "…Wow," he grumbled crossly (to his daffodil). "Ass."

Goodness, it wouldn't do to leave America in a bad mood when he, in turn, had provided Ivan such unbearable joviality! Flapping a hand at him in what he felt was an apologetic way, Ivan did his best to get his laughing fit under control.

…But to think that this game could be _so very fun – _really, America was special.

"Amerika, dorogaya moya, my dear _pen pal,_" Ivan said, choking slightly and wiping at the corner of his eye, and this time he stood fully upright and swept America a full, much more extravagant, much more flourishing bow, "You are _very_ welcome."


	12. Chapter 12

from russia, with love

* * *

A fellow _might_ agree that yesterday_ might_ not have been particularly terrific.

(That was sarcasm, of course.)

Clearly, the day before had not went as swimmingly as planned. Not that it had been planned. It hadn't been planned at all. What he meant was – well, no matter.

Arthur was sorry, for what it was worth. He hadn't _meant_ to make America – to – to make him _cry._ He'd taken America home (oh, it _had _been a while since he'd last set foot in there, hadn't it), settled the sniffling boy amongst his garish star-spangled cushions (oh, it _had_ been a while since he'd last seen _those, _hadn't it), and warmed him a mug of milk (oh, what an unexpected find in the refrigerator – since when had America stopped refusing to drink skim?) just like when he was a child. Exactly like when he was a child.

And yet, not quite. The child was different now. Funny how throughout the decades Arthur had always considered America the same person he had always been, felt that, at the very root of it all, America was always the same child Arthur remembered, and _now…_

This was all Russia's doing. That was what Arthur wanted to believe. He _wanted _to believe it, because otherwise, the only other thing he _could_ believe, the only other suspicion – no, _theory – _no, it was just a fancy, an insignificant passing _fancy_ (but really, it was because Arthur didn't want to admit, especially not to himself, that he was harboring such…demure notions. Such perfidious notions. Notions that maybe Russia wasn't solely responsible for whatever it was Arthur suspected, and that maybe America _himself_ was considering things such as…)

No. Arthur wouldn't think those thoughts, not even in parenthesis. Now that would be somewhat unbecoming! But he was still a country, and the present and the future still needed someone to worry about it, and Arthur had a _moral responsibility_ (yes, good, that sounded like a respectable enough reason) to make sure, absolutely, positively sure, that there was no danger, no threat to America, no threat to…the world. He needed answers and information.

Having brought America home yesterday, it would have been a golden opportunity to press him a little and coax some explanations out (now, please, despite how that might sound, Arthur _did_ feel bad, and he wasn't trying to take advantage of the situation or anything of the sort, _truly_) if not for the alien. The little beast – Tony, was it? – had come towards the sound they were making (and/or America was making, the noisy totface) and stared Arthur down silently with the most hostile blank gaze ever known to any creature that ever lived at any point in time. The message had been clear:

_Fucking limey._

Profound.

He'd never liked the alien anyway.

So Arthur had abandoned ship on his original plan, finished off his awkward comforting and hightailed it from America's house with a "Must dash" and, with _that _particular quest botched and no information gained, it seemed he would have to fall back on the one outdated, more traditional method of espionage from the old days that, personally, he felt _quite_ the expert in.

"Say, fancy going out for a drink?"

"Wha?"

It was sometime early evening or late afternoon on the second day of the American world conference. The discussions that day had dragged on for longer than expected, culminating in the thorough destruction of an inflation fluctuation chart and the thud of a hefty Greek falling to the floor in weary and abrupt slumber. Thank heavens it was all over with until tomorrow.

America was stopped midway from sloppily shoving conference notes on trade policies and a rolled-up statistics chart into his briefcase. His mouth was very slightly ajar, which made him look incredibly daft. God forbid that Arthur should ever let himself be caught with _that_ stupid face. "Wha?" America said again, merely adding to the effect.

Arthur sighed. Well, at least he could be relieved by the fact that things weren't _awkward_ after yesterday's farce. "A drink, git. You. Myself. Going to a pub. Drinking liquids in the pub. Fish and chips. Idle banter. In the pub. Between us, who happen to be in the pub. Which is where we go to. And at which we are drin—"

"—I _get _it, my god," huffed America, possibly offended at Arthur's attempts to dumb things down enough to get through his thick skull. "I mean, _why?_"

"What, I wasn't aware that a reason was necessary to spend time with you. Or to 'chill'. Isn't that what you Americans like to do all day, 'chilling'? Do I need permission to lounge around in low temperatures with you now, too?"

Arthur was rambling. He was barely conscious of the rubbish being spewed from his mouth. But he couldn't help it, he was barely paying any mind to it, he honestly didn't even feel more than a mite of care, because all of his focus at that moment was fixated on how at the words _"spend time with you,"_ America became visibly tense. Rather than America, Arthur felt much more justified in asking, _"Why?"_

But he didn't – because not only was he afraid of the answer, he was afraid that America would _lie_ about the answer, and he was afraid of what secrets might be driving that lie. And luckily, saving Arthur from saying anything, America (tripping slightly over his syllables) gushed, "O-oh, yeah, I mean – yeah, sure!"

And then Russia appeared.

Oh, for the grace of God, how did coincidences like this even— Did Arthur forget to terminate his summon circles again? Was it the festering demonic forces that kept drawing Russia towards them at the worst possible times? He did _not_ want to deal with a repeat of yesterday's miniature drama, and he did _not_ want to have any further contact with this blithering…bulky…_man_.

"Fair afternoon, westerner and westerner," said Russia pleasantly, dipping his head in salutation. "Mr. England, before Italy (the angry one, I am referring to) hurled his espresso into the projector screen, I do admit I felt some discrepancy towards the suggestions you made earlier. However I did agree with yours more than the contributions offered by Germany at the same time…"

"Glad to hear it," Arthur replied stiffly. "Now, if you'll excuse us…"

"Oh, nyet, but I came to say privet to dear America, which I have not yet done!" Russia subsequently turned to America. "I will do it now! Privet, dear America. There, it has been done."

"Hi," said America to his briefcase, as he reoccupied himself with the task of ramming its clasps shut.

Arthur's mouth opened – enough so that it was only _slightly_ ajar, as America's had been, and with an appearance that was roughly the same level of buffoonery. Hi. America said _Hi_ to Russia. This was not something that happened on a perfectly regular day when all was good and right and blessedly holy by the glowing angels of high heaven. The next thing he knew, America and Russia could be calling each other by first name and skipping down the corridors hand in hand. Something was wrong with this picture, which made no sense because Russia had made America cry yesterday (hadn't he?), and only further fueled Arthur's suspicions…

"America, I had quite an uplifting idea! Since it is nearing dusk, I thought to seek your counsel on a suitable location—"

"_Sorry,_" Arthur interjected, Russia pausing mid-sentence and flicking his gaze towards him, "But _we_" and he stretched out an arm to link around America's elbow (Arthur wanted to go for the manly arm-over-shoulder-teammates sort of thing, but he realized halfway that that might not work too well with their height difference), "have already made plans to go drinking. I'm afraid you'll have to find a tour guide somewhere else – it's the capital, shouldn't be too hard."

As Arthur watched, Russia's mouth formed a small exaggerated O and his eyes widened dramatically (oh, come on now, how old did he think he was, _five?_), then he looked at America, then America looked at him, then Russia said "_Oh?_" and raised his eyebrows and gave a single laugh through his nose, and then America looked embarrassed, and Arthur just wondered Why, why, why?

Russia clapped his hands together. "That is very perfect! I was just thinking I should like to ingest various consumable liquids of an alcoholic nature!"

"_You are not invited_," Arthur told him flatly, "In fact, all you are welcome to do is return directly to your hotel and do nothing and then, after this ridiculous conference ends tomorrow, you can go back to your country and do whatever the blast you want over _there._ Come on, Alfred." He took America's arm and proceeded to drag him out of the room.

"…He can go if he wants," said a voice, and Arthur must have not cleaned his ears properly of all the pixie dust that sometimes settled in there because that voice sounded very much like America's.

"_What?_"

America glanced guiltily over his shoulder at Russia, who was observing Arthur's horrified face with negligible interest. "I didn't say come with _us,_ but like…he can go to a bar if he wants, it's not like we can force him to do anything. I mean, it's the city, there are taverns and stuff everywhere…"

Arthur could only open and close his mouth wordlessly at him.

"Um," said America to Russia, "There's a good place about four blocks down from here, on the right of the crossway – they're friendly with some cabinet people, so they give uh, discounts for politicians, which I guess…I guess we're politicians, huh? So you can go there…yeah."

_Why?_ Arthur thought. Why this civility, why this…_chumminess?_

"Hey, Arthur, come on – do you want to stop by your hotel to change or something first? I have to go home anyway to drop this off and let Tony know, so yeah, let's go…"

As Arthur let America be the one to pull him out through the room's open double doors, all he could see as they exited was Russia waving them a cheerful, tiny, dainty goodbye and all he could think was _Why, why, why?_

* * *

"And I ask again, Alfred, why, why, _why_ is that Russian man_ sitting at the other end of the very same counter as us in the very same bar?_"

"That is a pretty good question," Alfred said, and resolved to ponder it thoroughly at a later date when his kiwi and lime daiquiri was less immediately within reach of his mouth and less extremely delicious.

Putting aside the fact that his drinks of choice were not exactly the manliest thing since fast cars with decals of fire and bullet holes all over them, Alfred was indeed also mystified at the phenomenon that was Russia just being there. It wasn't as..._terrible,_ maybe, that he once might have felt it to be. Alfred couldn't really find the words for it, but it was just that – well, maybe Russia wasn't that horrible and disgusting of a person as people thought. After all, yesterday, with the talking and the little notes and everything, and how…how Russia had kind of given him the impression that maybe something between him and England wasn't totally impossible after all, as he had long (as in, two hundred years long) thought it to be, and he had been kind of…nice. Ew. Okay. That sounded weird.

It wasn't like he wanted to go leaping into his arms or buy matching T-shirts or anything, or even be good friends, but Alfred thought it might be okay to be sort of…friendly. Well, maybe not _friendly, _per se – maybe just…two people who would nod civilly at each other if they happened to meet crossing the street. Or something more like enemies that didn't hate each other as much as they usually did. Something like that. Alfred was still pretty convinced that Russia must hate him, a _lot_, if all this torment and flapjackery had anything to say about it, though to be fair he was also equally convinced that Russia was totally into him in some gross way because hate only took tormentation so far. Besides, Russia was _Russia_ – being some sort of evil hateful demonic being was like his job. And things like Russia giving him that look earlier – when England had been all Grr-We're-Off-To-The-Pub-You-Can't-Come-Pip-Pip-Cheerio, which kind of had Alfred a bit flustered already (first the hug from the day before and then going drinking like this – almost like a _date – _and being so possessive about it, what could it mean? Surely he was thinking too much, thanks to Russia?) – and Russia had given him that look that could be best read as _Bow chikka bow bow _(loose translation). Yeah. That had been a blatant display of purposeful humiliation fueled by a sadistic hate/creeper-affection mix.

"Didn't you tell him specifically to go to _some other bar?_ I was under the impression that you told him to go to some other bar. Why is he _here_ of all places, instead of aforementioned some other bar or even a different bar entirely?"

"That is a pretty good question," Alfred said, sipping delicately through both straws of his daiquiri at once.

England made as if to hit him with his beer bottle.

"I mean," said Alfred quickly, dodging his head out of strike range, "It was just a suggestion. It's not like he _had_ to go there or anything. Maybe it's just a huge coincidence! Besides, I don't think he's even…seen us, right?"

It was true. Russia hadn't turned their way once since his arrival, and showed absolutely zero indication that he had noticed their presence at all. This wasn't exactly unbelievable, as their bar of occupation was not what one would refer to as "high-end", and there was plenty to distract a person – be it the tawdry serving girls flitting around with trays of beer, the very enormous man with his mouth attached so securely to the neck of the bottle he was swigging from that it was hard to tell where skin ended and container began, or the two voluptuous females with orangey spray-on tans having a shouting match in a booth near the door.

England seemed to find this a suitably satisfactory explanation and eased back down, directing his comments instead at Alfred's girly beverage. "…Wouldn't prefer a stronger drink, now, would you?"

"What? Why? Isn't there still a meeting tomorrow?" There was a sucking noise as Alfred siphoned off the last dregs of fluid from his frosted glass and looked at the empty bottom sadly.

"Well, yes, but it's not like a drop or two is going to do much harm …"

"Aren't you the one always preaching responsibility and everything?"

England frowned. "Yes, I suppose so…" He sighed, as if he were thinking hard about something or just disappointed at Alfred's lack of masculinity.

Well, if it was masculinity on the line…and if that guy _was_ in fact aware that they were there, Alfred certainly didn't want any Russians getting ahead of themselves and thinking he was a lightweight or something…

"Oh, fine, Arthur, I guess something wouldn't be _too_ bad right now…"

"_Really_?" said England, sounding a bit excited for some reason, and then, collecting himself, "I – I mean – really. Well, it can't be helped, I suppose— Here, barman!"

About 15 minutes later, England started asking him weird questions.

"Say now…Alfred…you wouldn't happen to be planning on anything in the future, now would you?"

"What? Like what?" Alfred had been scouting Russia beadily from the corner of his eye the whole while. Hopefully his manliness had been established by the scotch on ice he was now cradling in his hands.

"Oh, I don't know…like – like a party, or a new hairstyle, or a…a tax reform, or a decision with some other country…or a party?"

Alfred looked sideways at England. The Brit wasn't slurring and didn't seem tipsy, but he definitely wasn't making a whole lot of sense. "Are you drunk, Arthur?"

"Drunk? No, what are you— No, I'm not that _pathetic, _Alfred, what are you saying, stop being thick." Leave it to England to get all defensive about his drinking tolerance. "It's just that we've been kind of _distant _lately, and I wanted to – catch up on the big news. If there is any big news to be caught up on. I wouldn't know. You tell me."

"Uhhhhhh." So England wanted to catch up with him? As in…to get to know him better? It wasn't like they were strangers, so that was a little weird, and yet, at the same time, it made Alfred feel a little queer in the stomach area. "I…don't think so, I'm not really…anything…" Alfred busied himself with his scotch and, not sure what to say or think, glanced over at Russia again. He'd been so preoccupied with Russia being there unexpectedly that he had almost forgotten the situation he was currently in.

He was…

At a bar with England.

Together. (Well, that was obvious.)

Alone. (Well, not counting Russia.)

It was…kind of…intimate, wasn't it? (Well, no, he just _hoped_ it could be, maybe.)

_Shut up, Afterthought, _Alfred told his brain in frustration. But – yeah. Wow. He was…at a bar, together and alone, with England. And for once, his head wasn't filled with despairing flailing and things like _No, don't even go there, he doesn't like you that way and never will, don't be dumb_. Because England just might, yes, he just might, he _might…_ It wasn't totally impossible.

Russia was the one who had made him aware of this, too. What a surprise.

England spoke, and Alfred turned to him with full attention. Regardless of what might be…or what might not be…he'd make the most of this, right now, this special moment that he wouldn't otherwise have had a chance to have – well, maybe he would have, but he never would have been free to _enjoy _it like now…right? Right.

"There's no need to go hiding anything from me, now, Alfred, is there? Come on. New hobbies? New political…_positions?_" England paused briefly, and then, as if not wanting the last words he had uttered to linger (not that Alfred had caught on to this tidbit), said quickly, "Or, er – new love interests, things like that?"

Alfred choked on the tobacco-mingled tavern air a little and felt his heart skip a beat. "NowayArthurareyoukidding," he said, just a _little_ too quickly. "I mean, uh, no. Course not."

England pursed his lips and looked inexplicably frustrated. "Of course not," he echoed, and tapped his own glass of whiskey. "…Go on then, drink up. Cheers!"

They both tipped their glasses back. Alfred could feel the scotch burning unpleasantly down his throat, and a scotch-unrelated burning spanning the surface of his face to the tips of his ears.

* * *

One hour later, England was kind of drunk.

Really kind of drunk.

And the "kind of" was more of a formality. England was pretty drunk, yeah. To be honest, Alfred was surprised it had taken this long.

"Aaaaalf…red," England guttered, waving his empty glass around with his head dipping precariously close to the bar counter. "We – we're – we've become…_dismembered_…haven't we?"

"Uhhhh. Yeah." As far as Alfred could tell, both of them were very much in single, solid pieces with all of their limbs intact, but agreeing seemed like a much easier way to deal with England in this state.

"I _knew it_," moaned England, weakly banging the glass down onto the counter, "We…we've…grown apa…apaaa-haart… That's why you don't _tell_ me anything anymore…you don't tell me…_anything_...anymore…you stupid…_stupid_…stupidstupidstupidstupid…!"

"I'm…sorry?" Alfred had looked around nervously at England's loud glass-banging, worried they'd irritate some fellow bar patron (especially worried that hypothetical patron would be very buff and tattooed), but the majority of the tavern-occupiers were in a similar state, either slumped over their bottles that were dribbling liquor to the floor, or tearfully bemoaning their hardships to the unfortunate persons next to them. By the door, a nail-clawing battle was slowly developing between the two shouting orange-tanned busty women. In the far corner were four people making out gratuitously without too much concern as to the identity and/or gender of their tongue-sucking partners. England fit right in. All was well. "…What am I supposed to say, Arthur?"

As an answer, England pointed fiercely in the direction of Russia, who was still there and still apparently oblivious to their presence (well, actually, he was pointing to the empty space two feet to the right of Russia but judging by how unfocused his pupils were Alfred assumed he was just a bit off target). "Whaz…what's the big _plan_ with _that stupid bloke_, huuuhhhh?"

"Uh…what big plan?"

Thick eyebrows loomed closer and seemed to become larger than life as England leaned towards Alfred, swaying unsteadily. A wayward lock of British hair brushed the tip of Alfred's nose, and his mind went momentarily blank from the exhilaratingly close proximity they were sharing right now Oh god wow England was so close oh gosh he smelled like some sort of nasty soap that was so _sexy_ oh gosh oh man…!

"The _big plan,_ Albert, you obviously know the _big plan, _everyone knows the _big plan, _except for some poor old chap, who could it be? Oh, what a surprise, it's _me_ of course because _someone doesn't tell me on purpose_ and secrets are secrets are secreeeets…"

England peered into his empty glass and then blissfully shouted his commands for a bottle to the bartender, who was in the process of chatting up one of the table-serving girls and looked unimpressed.

Alfred had no idea what England was talking about, partially because he had only just returned to the earth from being distracted by England's nearness and attractive-smellingness and partially because England might have just called him Albert (who?) and partially because Wow England sure was drunk.

Strange as it was, Alfred kind of liked it like this. England was the one being raucous and childish, and Alfred was in the position of responsible adult. It was different. Comfortable.

…Not that there was much he could do to control him.

* * *

One hour later, England was apparently so inebriated that he was acting almost completely sober.

"You're a good one, Albert," he said gravely.

"Thanks," replied Alfred, rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head where England had hit him gaily at the suggestion that _"Maybe you've had enough, Arthur…"_ and wondering who Albert was.

England nodded in a serious way, wearing an expression most appropriated for funerals. "You are. You really are. You're a good kid. You've become such a good kid."

"Uh, thanks," said Alfred again. Maybe in this weird drunk-but-not-drunk state, England would agreeably call it a day and they could both leave. They had to be up at eight tomorrow morning…

Alfred was still considering this when a bolt of shock ran through his body as England reached over and put a hand on his head.

He remembered this. He remembered this feeling.

"You've probably forgotten," murmured England in an extremely solemn voice. "When you were small I'd do this all the time whenever you were good. You loved it. And it was more effective at getting you to go to behave than threatening that Francis would be waiting for you behind every bathroom door if you didn't listen." And, looking very somber like someone just died, England ruffled his hair.

Something shifted in Alfred's chest. He closed his eyes.

"I'm proud of you…" said England dourly, trailing off and squinting at him.

"Y-yeah," Alfred tried to say, but he could only mouth soundlessly because his larynx had stopped working.

"…Albert," England finished.

* * *

One hour later, England was 100 percent lacking in the consciousness factor, face down in his arms, sprawled over the counter in his seat and snoring quite enthusiastically.

"Um, Arthur, wake up," he said, poking the Briton's back tentatively, but to no avail.

Someone tapped the counter and Alfred looked up. A different bartender, one eye obscured by long hair, heavily pierced and fresh off a shift change, indicated to the right with a movement of his head. "Yo, big dude over there wants to talk to you."

Russia wiggled his fingers at Alfred from a secluded booth he had apparently moved to at some point during England's escapades of exponential drunkenness.

Alfred glanced at his charge and poked him again a bit harder. England shifted and mumbled something about dryad warfare into his shirt cuffs but did not wake.

_Well_…since England didn't seem like he'd be becoming sentient anytime soon…and since carrying him home was out of the question (because holycrapnoway could Alfred do _that,_ he would probably faint from all the blood rushing to his face just thinking about it)…and since all the alcohol Alfred himself had imbibed (at a pace, of course) during the past few hours hadn't exactly had _no _effect…

"Obviously you knew we were here all along," Alfred muttered, joining Russia in his solitary booth and sliding into the seat opposite him. "You creepy stalker guy. What was the point of pretending?"

"I cannot seem to come to an understanding about your words, dear America!" returned Russia in an unconvincing air of surprise, "I happened upon this lovely little drinking establishment a few hours previous and only just now did I notice your presence! I thought to myself, Goodness, is that not dorogaya moya, my treasured pen pal Amerika next to the unconscious British man? And then I felt that I simply _must_ exchange a few words of greeting and share a toast, to celebrate this blessed coincidence!"

"…Right. Sure."

It was kind of weird seeing Russia in a setting like this, at a low-grade downtown bar filled with rock-bottoms and sexually frustrated businessmen, sitting across from him in a corner booth next to the swinging bathroom doors and set to the sound of obscure indecipherable music and flushing and a lot of sobbing. The Russian was wearing a jacket (understandable, since despite it being spring already the nights were still kind of chilly) as well as his trademark scarf (wasn't that a little too warm?) as well as the same annoying smile he always donned. Man that smile was annoying.

"How is your little date with Mr. England going now, hm?" asked Russia, cutting into Alfred's reflections on whether or not Russia practiced his smile in the mirror to get it up to that level of annoyingness.

Alfred flushed. "Shuttup. It's not a date."

"Well, now, dear America, you cannot know that in certainty!"

"…Um, let's talk about something else." Okay. If his act of coming over at Russia's beckoning wasn't a sign that Alfred was a bit tipsy, then his proposal that they talk about something else was definitely an indication that the drink was causing him a serious lapse in judgment. The correct reply _would_ have been, "Um, let's talk about _nothing else at all_ and romp off on our own separate ways that are unrelated to each other."

Russia tittered a bit as if Alfred's desire to talk about something else was particularly laughworthy. "Da, if you wish! Shall we discuss diplomacy and secular matters, then?"

"…No. Why would you even want to think about business away from business?"

"We are a different instance, Amerika, did you not say so yourself? We are 'politicians'. Our responsibilities are of a higher caste!"

Alfred sighed. The alcohol was definitely affecting him, according to his own willingness to continue the conversation. "Well, yeah, but I don't want to have to think about it when I don't have to…that's like being someone who _enjoys work._ Whom I am not."

"But still you must do so all of the time, da? You are the United States of America, world superpower, setter of examples, meddler of unrelated issues, pestilence of the rest of the globe, after all. Though whether you deserve the role is another matter!" Russia tittered some more.

"Ha ha," said Alfred, grimacing at him. "And I guess you think your royal Soviet Unionness is better suited for it?"

"—_Russian_ _Federation_," Russia corrected him immediately in a slightly less tittery tone.

"…Uh huh." Both of them fell silent momentarily as they watched one of the two big-breasted orange women terminate the catfight and run past their booth into the ladies' bathroom, howling about her hair extensions.

"You know what," Alfred said, starting to stand, "I think I need another drink, so—"

Russia's arm darted across the table and pulled him back down by the sleeve. _Eurgh,_ said Alfred's brain at the moment of contact. "Nyet – I have already asked for us both, dear America, and there should be someone coming – you have no need to trouble yourself." He smiled winningly into Alfred's skeptical face.

Alfred narrowed his eyes at him. "Maybe you're just plotting to stick me with your god-enormous tab or some other criminal act."

"I apologize, there are at times a faint buzzing in my ear that distracts me from the various absurdities that issue from your mouth and thus I did not quite catch what you just said, forgive me – but no matter, that lovely young lady seems to be approaching with our drinks."

Said lovely young lady was a mule-faced serving girl with neon blue hair streaks and a displeased demeanor, who set down a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table between them with a clatter and then lingered to check her cell phone surreptitiously. "I must commend you and give my gratitude for the swiftness of your service, miss," Russia started to say cheerfully.

"Spare me," the girl interjected in a monotone and traipsed off to the far side of the bar. Alfred sniggered before he noticed the bottle's label.

Whiskey, huh? What a shocker. "No vodka?" he asked. "I would have thought that—"

"I find it somewhat difficult to believe you capable of thinking anything, dear America," said Russia lightly, pouring them both glasses, "And it seems that you are immune to the admonishments I repetitively administer to your person – _do not ever make assumptions_. Now, shall we toast to your idiocy or your critical lack of brains?"

"Aren't those both the same—"

"Hear, hear," said Russia, and raised his glass.

* * *

One hour later, Alfred was starting to regret coming to the bar with England in the first place. He was feeling it. Yep, he was definitely getting drunk. Yep, that was definitely not good. Intoxicated as he was, though, it didn't occur to him that all he had to do was simply _stop_ drinking and leave the premises.

"Man," he said.

"You are, I should hope," replied Russia.

"_Man,_" Alfred said again, and hiccuped. "Ugh. Okay. I know I'm drunk. I can tell. This is kind of, um…bad."

"Enough whiskey, I suppose," Russia chirped brightly, as if the past few hours of alcohol consumption hadn't affected him in the least. "Shall we start on the vodka, then?"

Alfred made a noise of indignation as best he could with his lightheadedness. "And you, Russia, say it's _me_ being dumb associating your drinking preferences with vodka?"

"There is nothing to say I have a preference for vodka, _Amerika,_" said Russia, and Alfred winced at the extreme emphasis he put on the pronunciation, "Perhaps I was merely acting upon a passing fancy!" He paused. "Is the sound of it a bother to you? Ameri_ka?_"

"Obviously," Alfred muttered, slightly put off by how the fake wood grain of the table seemed to be warping and twirling before his eyes. "Isn't that why you say it?"

"Well, yes," Russia admitted readily. "To my credit, however, I do try using it sparingly; there is no sense in allowing you to build an immunity to the discomfort it instills!"

How kind of him. Alfred took off his glasses and rested them on the table, rubbing his eyes in disgusted resignation. Immediately Russia honored his usual tradition of making dick moves and picked them up without permission. "My, you _do_ have frightful eyesight, America. How do you manage yourself on a daily basis?"

"Well," said Alfred scathingly, groping blindly for them, "Normally I have my _glasses_ to help me." The alcohol was not helping his sightlessness at all.

"That is terribly inconvenient, you know," Russia informed him. "But you _do_ look better without them."

Ignoring the comment, Alfred held out his hand demandingly for their return. Why wasn't Russia even tipsy? Was it because his beastly Russian blood was already nine-tenths 200 proof?

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Texas was once again nestled safely where it belonged on the bridge of his nose, but it didn't matter much anymore since Alfred was a lot more drunk than he had been before.

"Thought you could get away with it _too_, huh? Hahaha, _as if!_" he cackled, shaking his head for no reason.

Russia, inexplicably, was still the same as ever. _How?_ How could he not even be the teeniest bit drunk? That was totally uncool! That was totally ridiculous! It wasn't fair at all. In fact, Russia had totally been drinking more than Alfred this whole time, too! What was up with that! Surely he had to be _somewhat _unsober, surely there had to be a sign…

"Get away with what, dear America?" Russia asked, possibly just to be polite.

Alfred laughed loudly. Oh, the mirth Russia doth bring him! Acting like he had no clue! Acting all superior with his non-drunkenness! "Get away with you being a big stealer of ideas, you _idea stealeeeer,_" he sneered. "Stealing all my cool ideas, just stealing all the time, just stealing all the – all the _time_, that's you!"

Russia refilled their glasses. Alfred took his and threw half of the vodka back unceremoniously, feeling the now-satisfying burning all the way to the pit of his stomach. "I mean, sure, go ahead, act like it was all _your_ thing going up into space, _Whee hee hee look at me I'm Russia I'm in spaaaace look at this stupid beeping little spiky piece of shit ball all up in your orbits ha ha ha_, yeah, do whatever your want. _Look at me, privet, privet, I'm Roossia, look at me shooting my little commie disease pellets into all these countries tee hee hee this is so fun, ha ha ha look at me pimpin' this smokin' ICBM all over town yeah I'm so cooooool!_ Okay, asshole, I can deal with that, it's chill, because I totally kicked your ass in the end, didn't I, and then right at the part where you're supposed to be like _Ohhh America what a great guy he's so much better than me I give up everythinnnnnnng_ instead you go and jack off my effing flag!"

"Prasite, Amerika?" Why was Russia still so composed? Look, his glass was empty already too! Man, it was so irritating!

"The flag. _The flag. _Your little Russian Federation flag, damn it! Thought you'd go and just steal my colors, huh? Red, white and blue – that's like, _America._ That's like, my _trademark. _That's Alfred F. Jones' fucking _trademark. _I'm pretty sure I've got like some sort of patent protected copyright infringement thing on those colors and does Russia care? Nooooo, Russia doesn't give a damn, Russia just does whatever the hell he wants to and if he feels like copying America instead of coming up with his own cool flag to replace that ugly red one with the farmer gadgets on, fine, that's what Russia'll do! Sure! No problem! No problemo! Way to be _unoriginal_. And, goddamn it, why aren't you drunk at _all?_"

Russia giggled. "Dear America, cease your silliness. Mr. England and Mr. France also have flags of those colors as well, you know!"

"Well they stole it from me _too, _then, those asses!"

"But didn't they have their flags long before yours came into being? Well, perhaps not France, however..."

Alfred tried to think of a retort fast enough, but couldn't do very well being as drunk as he was. However, something did seem a bit odd—

"Whoa. Russia. Hold on. What'd you just say?"

"That their flags were around before yours? Don't tell me you didn't know even _this_, America—"

"Oh _shit_," said Alfred, capriciously laughing again, because suddenly everything was just the most hilarious thing that ever was wow man jeez drinking sure was great, "You did it _again_ – _twice_ – you just used a – you just said a – a, uh – a contra…a contra…uhhhhhhh…"

Russia cocked his head at him inquisitively. "A contra? You will be funding their rebellion once again this time, I trust?"

What was the word…? "No, no, a – _oh – _a _contraction,_ that's it, that was it, you just said a _contraction, _hahaha, you have never, _ever_ said a contraction before – you have never – hahahaha…"

"_Didn't"_ instead of _"did not"._ _"Don't"_ instead of _"do not"._ Alfred was quite sure that he had never heard such contractions from Russia before, always the namby-pamby proper formal sectioned speech and dictionary vocabulary and all, and now, abruptly, out of the blue, here came the contractions, even two in one sentence! It was so _random_ – why on earth had Russia never used a contraction until now? Alfred looked at the Russian, who looked back at him blankly, blissfully unaware of the goings-on in Alfred's head – and suddenly something clicked.

"Oh _shit_," said Alfred again, sniggering even more, "You _are_ drunk, aren't you?"

"I don't understand what you're saying, dear America—" Russia tried to say, only to be interrupted with more gales of drunken laughter. Oh man. Oh man. Some got depressed, some got sleepy, some started slurring when they got drunk – but no, Russia used _contractions_ when he was drunk, oh shit, that was absolutely fucking _hilarious _holy shit was this seriously happening oh dear goodness gracious hahahahahaha haha ha hahaha haha ha!

* * *

Half an hour later, Alfred's hysterics had subsided into plain tiredness. In Russia's case, his usage of word contractions had expanded into what one would call a normal person's behavior when vaguely inebriated, which was just babbling on and on and on and on and on.

"You know," said Russia, "This world meeting took place during the date that my sister Natalia had planned to visit me."

"Mhmm," said Alfred dreamily, watching Russia do nothing with slightly unfocused eyes.

"I sent her word, but she'll be very upset, no doubt…" Russia sighed depressively.

The hair by Russia's ear was slightly curly. Alfred had never noticed that before. How interesting.

"I've been considering your advice, America. I wonder, would that really be alright? Should I really be frank with her?"

Not paying any particular attention, Alfred droned, "Yeah. Yeah, do it." Russia was such a huge guy. His shoulders were so broad. He could be a football player, maybe. It'd definitely take a lot of tackling to bring _him_ down. That jacket he was wearing definitely accentuated his bigness, too. Alfred didn't think he'd ever seen Russia in a jacket. Even that one year on the Fourth of July, when Russia had gatecrashed his birthday party without being invited, the guy had been wearing his coat, hadn't he? Probably teleported directly from Siberia or something.

Russia sighed heavily again. "Natalia is really all I have left, however. I have no wish to lose her…"

The Russian looked pretty good in thinner clothing. He was really kind of muscular. Alfred could almost see the outlines of his biceps bulging from the arms…or maybe those were hidden grenades or something…

"What should I do? What would I tell her?"

Huh. Russia looked pretty good in general, actually, thin clothing or not. In fact, he looked extremely pretty good. How had Alfred never noticed this? Of course Russia was a good-looking guy. The proof was right here. Had he ever thought differently? Must have been crazy or something. "The truth," Alfred said offhandedly without thinking about it.

"The _truth,_ is it? But…the truth is something…something that I can't…she is my dear _sister…_"

What was Russia talking about anyway? He sure could carry on. Alfred would have gotten bored, had Russia's sudden new attractiveness not been such a fascinating subject to observe. Something caught his eye, and with no impulse-barriers in action he automatically reached to grab it – the end of Russia's scarf that had flopped onto the table with all his shifting around. It was still discolored at one end. Alfred had some vague remembrance that the discoloration was his fault, but he couldn't recall it very well…

Russia had become still at Alfred's requisition of his scarf, watching it be fiddled with. Then he said, "How can someone be sure if they're in love, Amerika?"

Gee, Russia really _was_ good-looking…

* * *

Five minutes later, Alfred and Russia had somehow ended up on the same side of the table. Alfred had no idea which one of them had moved to the other's side. Whatever may have come to pass, right now Alfred's glasses had fallen somewhere and he was gripping the scarf wound around Russia's neck as though it would stop him from falling down a deep dark chasm and Russia's hands were practically piercing his shoulders with their vicelike grip. It appeared that they were trying to kill each other.

"Russia, wait," said Alfred, wheezing a little, "I don't get it, are you trying to crush my collarbone or what—"

"—I am just as flummoxed as you, America, if you are trying to strangle me you are doing a very terrible job at it," Russia said in an undertone, not taking his eyes from him.

Their faces were inches apart.

"Where are my glasses?" Alfred asked breathlessly, warily refusing to look away in case he provided Russia an opening to slay him.

"I don't know. They fell somewhere," replied Russia, not loosening his hold on him and raising his chin slightly away from Alfred's would-be throat-wringing fingers.

"Help…help me look for them."

"You're better off without them anyway."

The distance between them grew smaller. Whether it was Alfred or Russia or both of them that had moved didn't seem to matter.

Russia loomed over him. Alfred could feel his breath on his face. "You smell like alcohol," he mumbled.

"You reek of it, dorogaya moya."

There was only a fistful of space between them now, and Alfred was no longer staring at Russia's eyes but at his lips that were slowly drawing nearer.

"I don't even like you," he whispered up to him, in some last halfhearted attempt to redeem the situation, and then Russia grew closer yet and the distance between them was almost nonexistent and then everything seemed to be fading and Alfred felt like he was falling into that deep dark chasm that he had been hanging on for his life to avoid, and the last thing he could see before the world slipped away was the expanse of his blurry vision being replaced with a familiar gray and red…

* * *

The first thing Alfred concluded when he woke up was that it was blurry. This was fairly normal, considering that he didn't usually wear Texas to sleep unless…well, he never wore Texas to sleep. That would be stupid.

Reaching around to locate his glasses – he habitually just threw them somewhere, maybe they were on the bed with him this time – his fingertips brushed something soft. Grasping it, he dragged it up to his face to see it better. His eyes were met with something long and thin and with a distinctly recognizable wine stain.

"Oh, _shit_."


	13. Chapter 13

from russia, with love

* * *

"Okay," said Alfred out loud in a very calm and collected and not at all flipping the fuck out way. "Okay. Okay. Okay okay okayokayokayokayo_shitohshitohshitshitshitshit_…!" A sudden stinging pain in his scalp informed him that he was tearing his hair out again.

Okay. Okay. Calm down. Calm down. Let's assess the situation like a cucumber would. How would a cucumber asses the situation? In a cool and calm way, of course! All he had to do was be like a cucumber. That was easy. Cucumbers didn't do anything. They just lay there cucumbering and occasionally met a choppy end in a salad or upon the sagging eyes of superficial aging women who truly believed that laying vegetables over their lids would to something to combat the gradual migration of their under-eye skin south. Okay.

_Okay. _

Now it would appear that he had just committed _UNSPEAKABLE SINFUL ACTS _with a certain Russian dude. That's what all the clues suggested. He had just woken up next to Russia's scarf, yes. This was his bed at home, yes. It was only just daylight, and upon squinting, the digital clock at his bedside table informed the world that the hour was 5:16, yes. Oh _dear_.

But…where was Russia? There was no Russia in sight. Under the bed? Unlikely. In the closet? There was so much shit in there, even an ordinary not-huge person wouldn't be able to squeeze themselves inside without exploding like King Henry VIII. No Russias here!

As his breathing slowed to only slightly above normal, Alfred realized with staggering, _enormous_ relief that he was fully clothed and very much decent and strapping-looking in his best ten-gallon-hat-themed pajama set that he usually saved for special occasions and didn't remember putting on. On shaky legs, he stood back from the bed and surveyed the cluttered floor around it. No clothing strewn about that hadn't already been there for weeks. No particular sign of any struggles of a passionate nature. Stopping to think about it, Alfred didn't even feel sore or strained in any area of his body, including the parts not meant for young maidens' eyes – perhaps the most relieving thing of all.

But no! He couldn't let his guard down just yet! If a lifetime of bad-movie-watching had taught him _anything_ (well, maybe not a lifetime, but more like every year since moving film had been invented) it was that situations like these usually happened in a certain way:

The dazzling hero or heroine gets drunk alongside Mister/Miss Unpleasant Adversary. Subsequently they wake in confusion, sleep-tousled and alone. And then, just as they are laughing off the wild conclusion that their surroundings seem to infer as a bad dream, Unpleasant Adversary appears in the doorway with a towel around their waist/mid-body looking very sexy with their hair dripping water everywhere and says something positively earth-shattering like, "Shower's free" or "I made you some coffee".

The closest bathroom to his bedroom in the enormous house was a little ways down the hall, and any sounds of a shower probably wouldn't make it that far through the walls. _But wait! _ What was that smell? Dear god, it was _coffee!_ It was normally masked by the smell of _not-towel-wearing people not making coffee in his house! _His hyperventilation recommenced without delay.

No. It was probably just Tony, dutifully making breakfast as always. Right? Wasn't it? Oh god, if it _wasn't_ Tony – he was banking on this—

"_Tony,_" he called loudly, trying to keep the panic from his voice, "Tony – _Tony!_" The sound ringing in the air, he closed his mouth and listened.

Sure enough, after about twenty seconds tiny steps became audible, and then Alfred's door opened. Tony came inside. Through hazy eyes, Alfred noted that Tony's scrawny jointless knees were brown-tinged, and he held a pair of children's gardening gloves—

_Tony hadn't been in the kitchen!_

At a sprint, Alfred cannonballed out the room, down the hallway, around the corner, into the main hall and skidded into the kitchen. It was a good thing he no longer slept on the second floor (he'd officially moved his bedroom of occupation downstairs a few years back after a particularly terrifying movie about murderous hauntings on higher ground), because had any stairs been on the way of his glasses-lacking journey (should've looked for Texas before setting off on his marathon, bah, dumb), he would certainly not have been left with much in the way of vertebrae.

_And now, in the kitchen there was_— No one.

The kitchen was empty. A bowl of pancake mix rested next to the stove, ready to be cooked, and the electric coffee maker was steaming, dispersing its pleasant aroma throughout the household…but there was no Russia, nor any other towel-clad, hair-dripping individual within view.

Tony entered the kitchen at his own pace, gazed blankly at Alfred who was frozen in a ready-to-attack pose, then set the gardening gloves aside, walked to the sink, cleaned himself off, and started up the stove to make pancakes.

Alfred's arms, both of which had been raised in a predatory manner (so as to deploy immediate defensive tactics if necessary), flopped uselessly to his sides and he discovered he was still clutching Russia's scarf. He looked at it. Even the scarf's shape was indefinite without his glasses on.

"Tony," he said, "Where's Russia?"

Tony opened a cabinet, pushed some bottles around, removed a can of non-stick cooking spray and spritzed the frying pan he was setting onto the stove.

"Tony," said Alfred, "Is Russia here?"

The alien checked the burner and then opened a drawer in search of a pancake flipper.

"Tony," said Alfred, becoming bemused at the lack of response, "Where's Texas?"

After spooning the first glob of pancake mix into the pan and adjusting the heat, Tony turned to Alfred and stared at him. Was the alien going to have a rare moment and talk? No, it didn't seem like it…but somehow, just from looking in his eyes, Alfred could usually tell what he meant…

"What do you mean, call him?" Alfred asked, even more bemused. "So he's not here? So we didn't actually— uh, I mean – how am I even supposed to call him? I don't know his cell phone number or anything, and I can't exactly use the Hot Line…unless you wanted me call his house or something, I guess I could find that in our little nation-phonebook thing…"

Tony nodded and looked over his shoulder to check on the pancake's progress.

"But he's not even in Russia – he's here in D.C., isn't he? The meeting's supposed to start at 10, and some of the countries wanted to talk beforehand at 9-ish—"

Tony shrugged and turned back to the pancakes. Alfred stood confused. Call Russia's house in Moscow? That didn't make any sense. But then again, Tony knew best…

Alfred walked back into the hallway where the telephone sat on a small table and, after some fumbling (damn it his eyes were bad he should have put his glasses on before coming downstairs), called Russia.

Surprisingly, the line picked up before the first ring had even stopped. "Da, Braginski slushaet—"

"Russia?" Alfred interrupted in incredulity. There was a silence.

Then, with buzzing long-distance background noise to accompany the English, "America, I find myself very confused."

"Where…where are you right now?" Alfred asked the phone receiver.

Another silence. "…I believe I am at my home. In…Russia, that is."

Alfred made what was probably a very comical _Huh?_ face at the phone that no one was around to see. "What? Why are you – how did you _get_ there – unless – wow, you teleported again? I wish I could do that! Uncool!"

The silence was even longer this time. "…What are you saying, America? That does not make any…"

"Nevermind," said Alfred quickly, "I thought – uh – nevermind. Wait, so why – did you hop a plane last night or something? I really don't remember anything, to be honest, so—Why'd you go back to Russia? There's still the last day of conferences here, at like 10 AM or something?"

"…I did not come back. Well, I do not think that I did." The phone line paused. "And yet, contrariwise, I am here."

"…Uhhhh…wow. Okay…I guess."

"I am having difficulty recalling the events of last night as well," Russia continued on through the phone. "We were sharing company at that little drinking establishment…we brought out the vodka. The memory fades. All I can remember in certainty is an intriguing grayness…and redness…"

Funny, Alfred kind of remembered something like that too. Grayness and redness…wasn't there something familiar about that? Grayness and…

Still pressing the phone to his ear, Alfred leaned sideways a bit to look through the doorless opening into the kitchen. Within, a small alien with a kitchen apron tied around his waist and looped around his neck was pattering about, stacking pancakes upon a plate. The small alien was very gray. Tony faced him as he turned to put the plate of pancakes onto the table. His eyes were very red.

Huh.

Russia had stopped talking again, and Alfred wasn't too keen on explaining his sudden suspicion that a certain gray-and-red alien had some otherworldly hand in the mysterious happenings of last night and sounding totally crazy, so he said, abruptly, "I have your scarf."

As Russia replied, Alfred noticed that his voice had been freed of a tenseness that he hadn't noticed at all until it was gone. "Is – is that so? I see, so it is in your…I was searching for it, I could not find it, I thought…well, nyet." Russia stopped. "Please do treat it with care, I will collect it later today when the nations meet." He stopped again, then, as if it only just occurred to him, he added, "Do you find yourself missing your spectacles, America?"

Alfred automatically reached up to where his glasses would be. "What? How did you know? I forgot to put them on this…wait." He was figuring something out here.

Russia's next sentence confirmed it. "I seem to be in the possession of them … I suppose we will exchange items at the meeting later?" Russia had his glasses? No! Tragedy!

"Urgh…okay, I guess, yeah. Wait, speaking of the meeting, are you going to be able to make it? I mean, you're kind of…you know…in _Russia, _Russia."

Another silence. "What is the time the meeting is directed to begin, and what is the time where you are right now, America?"

"Um—"Alfred fumbled the phone before catching it. "It's supposed to start at 10, and it's…almost half past 5 AM now, somewhere around that?" He looked at the grandfather clock in the hallway with him. "Yeah, around that time. That's…wow, that's like 4 ½ hours, that's definitely not enough time at all…unless you teleported…you know…"

This was kind of bad. The world conferences traditionally held each month – attended exclusively by the world's leading nations such as himself (basically, the old ally-axis gang plus a few) – were possibly one of the most important unpublicized political gatherings there was (despite the very little that was ever accomplished at them, shockingly). A country _not_ attending them was a big thing, and usually an offense to the meeting host's administration (though once in a while Japan would suffer a bout of Not-Wanting-To-Interact-Publicly-itis and everyone kind of just coughed and let it slide while the Japanese envoys bowed and apologized and bowed some more at a feverish rate) – Alfred and Russia had boycotted their fair share of each others' meetings a few decades back. Their own issues were one thing, but if Alfred's boss took offense at Russia's absence from the meeting…especially now, with their respective governments' delicate post-Cold War relationship with one another…

From the silence and white noise that was once again emitting from the other line, Alfred surmised that Russia was thinking along the same lines. "How soon can you get here, do you think?"

"I cannot say," said Russia, and Alfred dared to think that the man actually sounded a little _troubled_ for once. "A normal passenger plane…that would be over 10 hours, da? It is the afternoon here…perhaps I could procure a military flier or something similar, but there would be much explaining to be done, and the clearing of airspace…"

"I can talk to someone," Alfred offered. "I'll get you the all-clear for flying and landing so no one freaks out and thinks you're gonna bomb us or something. I think I can push the meeting back a bit too, maybe – no one should mind too much, they're all in the area anyway and I know Greece'll probably be pretty happy about the extra sleep, not that he's ever awake during the meetings anyway. Is that…is that good? Is that enough? I mean…there has to be a way around this."

"Yes," said the phone, "If we move quickly, while there is still time, this situation may come to mend itself." The line crackled. "America, if I may receive your cellular telephone number?"

Alfred was about to ask _"Why?"_ as an almost-reflex, but he knew why, of course – they had to keep up correspondence during this potential political disaster and keep each other in the know. "Alright," he said, and rattled off the digits to Russia. "You know, it's kind of weird you've never asked me this before. You being as bizarrely stalkerish as you are."

The phone line crackled again with what may have been a laugh on Russia's end. "The tumultuous weather here during winter is frequently disruptive to telephone signals. I did not feel particularly bothered to ask you. Besides, sending a letter ensures that the recipient will at some point concede to their own curiosity and read its words; cellular phones are far easier to shut off and ignore! I must leave now if we are to accomplish this in time – I will be in contact with you shortly, dear America." The line went dead.

Wow. Okay. Phew. That was a whole lot of thinking for such a short period of time. Alfred had to wind down a little.

Now, what just happened here?

To start with, last night, Alfred had been at the bar with England. England had gotten totally smashed and passed out. Alfred then proceeded to get drunk with Russia. A big blind spot after that…then Alfred had woken up at home, with Russia's scarf and without his glasses. Tony had advised him to call Russia in Moscow via an emergency book of nation contact numbers, and he did. Russia was discovered to be there with Alfred's glasses and without his own scarf, thereby proving that the terrifying evidence that they had gotten it on was NOT TRUE _THANK GOD_.

However, Russia being in Russia made no sense whatsoever. Both of them couldn't recall the previous night, except for a lot of gray and red which equaled a lot of dubious arrows pointing at Tony the household alien. Putting aside this totally impossible incident/miracle, though, a bigger problem was upon them. Russia had to make it here, in the USA, in time for the meeting. They had to make it happen.

Also apparently _Russia could not teleport. Whaaaaaaaaat?_

…Alright. It was still half past five, the face of the grandfather clock told him. The folks at work were probably only just starting, or maybe not even up yet, Alfred wasn't sure, and Russia's doing of things that had to be done first would probably take a little while. He had some time to ponder things out. Figure out some mysteries.

"…Tony, I want to ask you something," he said, reentering the kitchen.

Tony, who was finishing pouring out two cups of coffee, gave him a look that seemed to convey that the alien did not approve of his tone whatsoever.

Stay strong, Alfred F. Jones! Don't be intimidated! "Tony…did you have anything to do with how I ended up home after last night and how Russia is all the way on the other side of the world?"

As an answer, Tony walked over to Alfred, took hold of the corner of his shirt, dragged him over to the kitchen table, sat him down, and pushed his chair in. He then placed fork and knife in Alfred's hands, disappeared from the kitchen, reappeared with Alfred's cell phone, put it on the table within reach, then removed his apron, picked up the tiny gloves he had discarded, and vanished, presumably to go work in the garden.

Alfred was left shaking his head in a doglike way, feeling as though he had just come out of a trance. _Man_. Tony had prevailed once more, successfully subduing Alfred as well as avoiding his question and exiting the scene. He could never win against Tony. Tony was way too high level for him to handle. He'd have to try harder in the future.

Feeling a warmth on his lap, Alfred looked down to see a fuzzy beige something – Russia's dearly coveted scarf resting on his legs. Setting the eating utensils down on the table, Alfred slid the chair away from the table to gain some space and picked it up.

The wool was soft to the touch, and despite its high capacity as a cold-warder, it was light and airy and not heavy at all – pretty much the polar opposite of Russia, ha ha, if Russia were a scarf, though that would admittedly be _kind of unnatural_. Alfred still stood by what he had thought when seeing the scarf at a greater distance – the quality of scarf was definitely too _good_ to have seen hundreds and hundreds of years of action. (Then again, with all the craziness that had unraveled today in just ten minutes or so, what was he to say about impossibility?)

It was hard to make out, even with the scarf practically pressed up against his face – god damn, his eyesight was bad without his glasses – but here was that wine stain he kept seeing again and again. It stood out from the otherwise clean and immaculately kept material like a sore thumb (how did sore thumbs stick out, by the way? Never made sense to him), and somewhere inside Alfred he felt a teensy tiny twinge of what might have been regret or guilt. The stain was no fault of _his_, of course; if he remembered right it had been Russia who spilled the wine and created the stain. But it was obvious that this was a really important thing, something seriously sentimental, and with this marring imperfection…it just felt like a shame.

Because…those wooden soldiers…that musket…that old uniform…the leash of the first dog he had ever owned, given to him for Christmas by England when he wasn't even three feet tall. Despite all of his previous insistence that he just forget and move on, he still kept those things shut away in a closet somewhere, still unable to throw them away. Alfred could understand the preciousness associated with…stuff like this.

The cell phone rang and Alfred jolted slightly in surprise. Russia was calling already. "America," came his phone, "I have just held a telephone conversation with my superior and the officials – they almost immediately approved my request without any trouble. It is rather strange how they almost never question anything I say, but no matter. I am not yet certain how long the journey will take, but for now, action on your end is needed."

"R-right," replied Alfred, returned to the neediness of the situation. "I'm on it right now, talk to you in a bit."

* * *

_Phew_, thought Alfred, dropping the phone with a clatter onto the table for what felt like the first time in about fifteen years and finally allowing himself to relax in his seat.

The situation was all clear. Disaster averted, everybody! High fives and fist bumps and chest bumps and frat boy handshakes all around!

Looked like the Russian Federation would in fact be attending the third day of the American world conference after all! Yes, Alfred's boss and the higher-up office in general had been pretty damn bewildered at the nonsensicality of the situation ("What, Al? What do you mean he's in Russia? I thought he was here yesterday!") and no, Alfred had not done too awesome of a job coming up with an excuse to explain it ("What, Al? What do you mean he had to go back to feed his dog? Now that is just not good pet ownership!"). But he _had_ bought Russia some O.K. and some air clearance as well as some extra time by pushing the meeting back until noon. Mission Accomplished! Apocalypse Averted! Props to solidarity and teamwork, yeah!

It was kind of cringe-worthy to think about, but Alfred hadn't been able to help thinking (and cringing) as he and Russia ping-ponged back and forth with short calls to each other and to the ones in charge that, when it came down to it, they were actually pretty _good_ as a team. Joint-efforting and collaboration and all that, y'know? Both of them being able to lay aside whatever personal issues and unrelated thoughts and normal creepiness entirely for the sake of focusing on the greater good, for the sake of saving the delicate, ever-teetering balance of political standings and relationships. That was what was most important, after all…as England would say, and as Russia may or may not have touched upon last night (he wasn't sure if they had actually discussed the subject or if it were all a dream).

…Speaking of England…

Uh oh. He'd definitely ditched him at the bar, hadn't he? Alfred hoped the man had gotten back to his hotel okay. Unless England had also "mysteriously" awoken to find himself at his hotel or in the United Kingdom or something (unlikely, as he hadn't received any bewildered phone calls from that region of the world yet). Well, Alfred would just have to apologize at the meeting, no biggie. He hoped England wasn't mad at him. That'd definitely be a downer on any potential, y'know, _relationships_, cough, that might possibly maybe have a tiny slim possible chance of forming, possibly, maybe. Y'know.

Cough.

…In other news, Alfred was _totally blind_. Thankfully, making heroic phone calls and saving the governmental world didn't require too much effort from the optical areas of the body, nor was shoving bites of pancake with Canada-and-Kumajiro-gifted maple syrup into his mouth between calls particularly taxing (he _did_ poke himself hard in the nose a few times with food-laden fork though, admittedly). But that stage of his day was for the most part over already, and what awaited him now was being very very very _unable to see which sucked a lot._ How was he going to make it until the meeting when Russia could give him Texas back? Those streets were dangerous! Someone could be pickpocketing him at any moment, a stampede of forest deer could run him over without warning, and he wouldn't even know.

Russia was right. He'd said something last night before everything Alfred remembered kind of fizzled out – he said that Alfred's absolute inability to cope with life in general without Texas was inconvenient, and he was right. (Russia also said he looked good with them off, but jeez that was just weird so Alfred decided to pretend he didn't remember that part.)

Alfred depended way too much on his glasses, and look at where it got him when they were gone. He made a mental note to fix this devastating Achilles heel of dumbness so it wouldn't happen again.

He wondered how Russia was coping without his scarf.

Comet to think of it, Alfred had never seen the man _without _his scarf, not once. Was it even possible? Sure, Alfred now knew that Russia was in the possession of a neck and the parts obscured by the scarf weren't just empty space, since Russia had removed the scarf in his presence before…but he'd never been completely departed from it, had he?

Alfred looked at the scarf again, held it in his hands again, and took in once again how _soft_ it was, how clean (sans stain) it was, how warm and potentially comforting it could be…it wasn't hard to imagine this scarf in place of a teddy bear, or a security blanket, or just…something like that.

Hardly realizing what he was doing, Alfred pressed the soft wool to his cheek and breathed.

There was a noise at the kitchen doorway and he almost choked, coming back to his senses immediately, standing abruptly and dropping the scarf onto his vacated chair and trying to move away from it inconspicuously quickly, nonchalantly acting as if he totally had _not _just been nuzzling Russia's scarf and breathing in its scent (which was herb-like and soothing, by the way). Of course, being quite handicapped in his eyesight, he failed to see the other chair directly in his way, tripping over it and barely avoiding crashing onto the floor by slamming his elbow against the surface of the table, which hurt a lot.

Standing at the entrance, Tony took all this in without comment.

Alfred, sounding as casual and cavalier as he could with his complaining elbows and awkward position, said, "Hi, Tony."

Tony did not say anything. His eyes, however, were fixated upon Russia's scarf which had been hastily thrown down onto the chair, and they did not waver as he approached it.

"Tony?" Alfred asked cautiously.

The alien picked the scarf up. "Um, Tony, I don't think that's a good idea – that's not mine, you know, that's Russia's, so…"

In complete disregard of his words, Tony took the scarf and left. Alfred was left standing there wallowing in amount of life he had remaining, which was probably not much at all, because _if something happened to Russia's scarf_…good god, who knew what would happen to him, _good god!_

It had barely been any time, however, before Tony was pattering back on his tiny gray feet with the scarf in tow. He handed it back to Alfred, who looked it over carefully. What did Tony just do? There was no damage, no dirt, no nothing on the scarf's surface, which was as perfect and untarnished as ever…

_Oh_.

The wine stain wasn't there anymore.

"How did you do that?" Alfred asked Tony, although he knew quite well that no illumination would be given. The past few dozen years of the alien's company had clearly shown that the small gray being was chock full of mysteries that would probably be a lot less effort to leave unexplained rather than pursue some answers from. True to expectations, Tony didn't say anything but blink unconcernedly up at Alfred before pointing towards the center of the house.

"…The garden?" interpreted Alfred as Tony's meaning. "Now? I don't know…then again, the meeting _is_ at 12 now…and the courtyard does need to be weeded. And the weather's already this warm…we could start pre-planting things. I think there are some trays somewhere…" What was he hesitating for? Clearly his mind had already decided to do it. "…Well, okay then…just for a little bit. Lead the way…I guess."

A bit of gardening before the rest of the day started wasn't such a terrible idea, after all, even if he probably wouldn't be able to tell weed from dirt from brick wall about to be walked into. He could tone down a bit, collect himself before the meeting, after all that Waking-Up-and-Narrowly-Avoiding-Epilepsy-ing and Russia-Being-in-Russia-ing and the more recent What-the-_Fuck_-Was-He-Just-Doing-with-Russia's-Scarf-ing. Urgh. Yeah, a little weeding break was definitely a good idea. Something familiar and easy and reassuring. Yeah.

Following Tony out of the door, it was barely two seconds before he tripped over a very obvious coat rack, smashing his face against one of its pegs as he brought the whole thing, including himself, crashing to the floor.

God damn it. He couldn't _see._

"Ugh, hold on, Tony," Alfred sighed, extremely frustrated now, "I've got to find some spare glasses or something. Also, this shit needs to stop immediately and never happen again, so there's one more phone call we're going to need to make here."

* * *

Navigation.

Alright. Doorway to meeting room was right over there. Just a few feet. Walk, now. He knew this building by heart, or at least he should. Hallway…hallway…doorway, doorway, doorway. Okay. Slowly now, pass through doorway…okay, he was inside.

Brandishing his hands out in front of him like some sort of diseased bird, Alfred carefully picked his way around the conference room, moving towards the large mass at its center that he assumed was the meeting table. His eyesight was bad. His eyesight was terrible. If he had a knife right now, he would stab it into his wrist with great justice. Although he would probably not be able to see where his wrist was and kill some poor bystanding dog or tree or senior citizen instead.

Yes, Alfred had managed to scrounge up a pair of age-old glasses from somewhere, one with gratuitously thick coke bottle lenses that may or may not have belonged to one of the first ten Presidents. Wearing them did indeed enable him to see more clearly, but they also provided him easy access to head-splitting nausea and pain, so he was trying to wear them only on an absolutely necessary basis. The basis right now, no matter how much unwanted contact his extremities were making against pieces of furniture and pieces of people, was not absolutely necessary. It just bruised. A lot.

"_Shit_, sorry, Japan," Alfred apologized after colliding with the shorter man. "I mean, if you _are_ Japan – _oof_ – sorry, Belgium – _whoa – _sorry about that, whoever you are!" ("…Alfred…it's me…Matt…")

Japan stopped with an "Ah – it is fine – are you alright, Ameri—" and a concerned face turned towards Alfred, who had already stumbled away before Japan could get the rest of his sentence out. ("_Eff it – _sorry, Spain!")

Finding his seat at the head of the conference table, Alfred groped around the back of it before easing himself down with a sigh. Only a little while longer would he have to put up with his inability to utilize his corneas. Hopefully Russia's high speed plane had already landed and he was on his way here.

"Alright there, Alfred? Where are your glasses?" Indistinct thick shapes were perched upon the upper half of the speaker's face. England.

"Hey, Arthur. Um, it's a long story – I'll have Texas back in a bit though, so no worries."

"Oh," said England airily, "Oh, that's fine then, that's good, what a _relief_, glad there's no problems here, glad everything's okay, because since _that's_ out of the way I can stand here and ask you now why in _blazes_ exactly did I wake up at three in the morning in a rubbish American bar with an unconscious, overly tanned woman passed out in the seat next to me and no _you_ anywhere in sight?"

He looked quite livid. Alfred would have found this slightly cute had he been capable of seeing it properly (although England not being mad at _him_ might have helped as well). "Ooh, yeah, _that…_um…damn, I'm really sorry, Arthur. I tried to – well, you wouldn't wake up – and then, well...damn it, I'm really, _really_ sorry, Arthur, believe me!"

Sniffing at the apology, England went on, "Where did you _go?_ And, pray tell me, why was today's meeting delayed by two hours? That phone call from some secretary or other, one of _your_ people I suppose – that call to the hotel was a kick in the teeth, a right _shock_, mind you – after all government staff don't often get involved in our world meetings at all – if all of a sudden the administration is deciding to stick their noses in nation-only business, then at the very least they could provide accommodations for all us attending blokes rather than leave us to fend for ourselves, you know, I mean, really, the euro isn't going as strong as it once was nowadays and dipping into the treasury every month—"

"Seriously, I'm sorry about leaving you there, Arthur," Alfred cut in, stopping what was on the way of becoming a long and winding rant that, following England's regular pattern, would probably end up being some self-argument about the importance of preserving traditional elf culture.

England huffed. "So then, where were you? What was the _huge, drastic_ emergency that was so urgent you had to abandon a poor English gentleman such as myself in an establishment filled with absolutely foul company?"

"Umm." Alfred hesitated, thinking of aliens and vodka and mysteriously waking up at home and/or in Russia. "There was – there was something I had to do," he said lamely. "Nothing important. Doesn't matter now."

England was frowning at him in a dubious way, but Alfred didn't see this because there was at that moment a small commotion at the door.

"—Eluosi," a resigned-sounding, slight figure – was it China? – was sighing, "Baituo, _baituo,_ please, if you can controlling your people who are enter my country, it will be very helpful thing, so disrupting _all the time_—"

"—But how unreasonable of you, Yao," replied a voice that Alfred had very recently heard from the speaker function of his cellular phone. "You are as well aware as I that the individual actions of each and every one of my children cannot all be easily monitored."

"Laziness," China declared tiredly. "Past emperor have once say, _Rongyi bu rongyi, hai dei—_ Where you going now? I'm not finish lecture yet!"

Russia was coming towards Alfred. "This is a topic that can be discussed when the meeting starts, dear Yao," he called over his shoulder to the door, where China stood shaking his head and saying to Belgium, "Aiya, always the _impudence, impudence,_ with that one, ever since child ager."

Alfred took in the unclear sight of Russia as he approached. Scarfless, Russia looked strange. Diminished. It was like he had lost a large chunk of body mass – Russia hadn't been without his scarf since Alfred had known him, and Alfred found that he had associated Russia with Russia always wearing a scarf. Seeing him without it was like seeing him without a vital part of his person, such as an arm, or an eye, or buttocks. Apparently, many of the other nations shared this sentiment, as heads were turning in obvious incredulity as Russia passed them, taking in this stunning new development.

"Do you have it?" Russia asked immediately upon reaching a distance of four feet from him, without so much as a howdy-do.

Well, it was understandable. Alfred supposed he would let it slide. "Yeah, here," he said, opening his briefcase and rummaging in it before pulling out a malleable brown package.

"You have wrapped it?" observed Russia, surprised.

Alfred shrugged, muttering, "I mean…didn't want it to get dirty or anything, I guess." Quickly he added, "Can I have Texas? My glasses?" Finally, being able to see! Would reuniting with Texas be like suddenly being bathed in heavenly light? Would it be like one of those 24-hour allergy medication commercials where a blurred, low-quality bit of scenery suddenly became crisp and clear and you were like _Oh what_ because you hadn't even noticed that the first image was that poor until after it had improved by so much?

"Oh – da, of course, allow me to…" Russia patted through his pockets and paused. "Ah."

That didn't sound good. The liberating images in his mind were dispersing.

" 'Ah'?" Alfred repeated warily. "What 'ah'? _What's_ 'ah'? Russia…"

Russia looked at him, smiling in a sheepish sort of way. "Ah…dorogaya moya…I apologize, but it seems that I may have left your glasses in my home…"

"_What?_" gasped Alfred in horror, shooting up from his chair. No!

"I suppose, in my haste at being so pressed for time, and the exigency of the situation, I simply…forgot."

"How do you forget? How do you possibly forget? We must have gone over it at least ten times before you left for the plane, you were the one going _scarf-scarf-scarf, don't forget the scarf_ – how do you forget to bring the _glasses_?" Good god, he was going to be blind forever! Never again to watch another comedy with extremely poor taste, never again to fumble the controller during a boss battle and have his last life blasted to bits by bone-flinging skeleton soldiers that weren't even strong! "You're _forgetting the Alamo, _Russia, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do!"

Russia was listening to him rage while unwrapping his scarf (_pah_, that dumb scarf that Alfred had gone through _such pains_ to fold up and wrap carefully in brown paper to protect it from harm, for instance assaults by stainable liquids and/or mountain lions), and Alfred could almost swear the Russian was trying not to laugh. Oh, sweet merciful mother, don't tell him that Russia hadn't brought the glasses on _purpose_, just to see him suffer! The man _knew_ he couldn't live without Texas, Alfred himself had stupidly admitted as much to Russia last night – and already he was extorting the information for everything it was worth while Alfred paid the price!

But then something in the Russian's face changed.

"…You cleaned it," he said. A statement, not a question.

Still stewing to himself, Alfred didn't absorb his words right away. "What?"

"The stain here—" Russia pointed to where the wine discoloration had been, "—is gone. You cleaned it."

"Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, no – well, it was Tony who cleaned it, actually, I have no idea how he did though…don't tell me you're _mad_ about it now? Should be damn _grateful_ in my opinion, especially with forgetting my glasses and all the favors I pulled for you this morning, like, _jeez_—"

"Nyet," said Russia quietly. "Nyet, I am…I am grateful."

Alfred creased his eyebrows at him.

Russia folded the scarf into a smaller rectangle, slowly and meticulously, and draped it over an arm before speaking again. "…Would you like to come to my home, Amerika?"

About to reply, it was only after Alfred had opened his mouth that he realized he had absolutely no clue what the _hell_ to say to that.

Russia watched him stand there with his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating trout. As Alfred reached his twelfth mouth-flap and still apparently was at a loss for words, Russia decided to explicate. "…Well, since you seemingly cannot cope with being parted from your spectacles as a result of your own patheticness…my intentions were to send them along by air post to you, but if you were to accompany me and recover them in person, you would be reunited far more quickly. Oh – it occurs to me now, there are also some documents my superior wished me to pass over to you – I am not quite finished with them yet, but I could complete them quickly and then you could collect them in turn, it would also be greater in convenience than sending them by mail… Unless, of course, you disagree?"

Alfred was still gaping at him. It was taking a while to process all this information – his brain had already been run decently ragged with all the hubbub that morning. Finally the rusting cogs in his brain gave a little mechanical groan and shut themselves down, and he found that yes, as a matter of fact, he _had_ heard Russia correctly, and then he thought to himself _I must be out of my goddamn mind,_ because his mouth flapped once more before it said, "U-um, no. I mean – uh – sure. Sure, I'll go."

They blinked at each other.

Russia broke the brief silence with a slightly rueful chuckle. "Did you know, Amerika – I should mention – it occurred to me this morning, as I was running out of the head office – I was admiring your uncharacteristic calmness during our little event, there, and then I thought – we work well together."

"…Yeesh," said Alfred, with a small grimace, but then again he sounded pretty rueful too. "Maybe. Let's not go crazy here. Let's say it's…_situational_." Russia chuckled again while Alfred made an affronted and grossed-out face. He didn't want to admit that the very same thought had gone through _his_ head that morning too. It was true. They really _did_ work well together. How bizarre.

"_Ahem,_" said someone sharply.

That someone was standing very near the two of them, arms crossed over his chest and one leather-shoe-clad foot tapping irritably, the sound of the small impacts dulled and muted by the carpet. The person's abundant eyebrows had all but vanished into their fringe of blond hair, and he stood with the air of one who had been there for a good amount of time while being wholly ignored—

Oh _wow_, thought Alfred, feeling incredibly ashamed and mortified at himself. He'd forgotten all about England.

"What's up, Arthur?" he asked weakly, filled with self-loathing. Imagine, having these embarrassing kind of _feelings_ for a person and then neglecting their very presence for the sake of some stupid Russian guy who didn't even bring Texas with him…way to go, Alfred F. Jones, chickenshit extrordinaire!

England's eyebrows were still steadily climbing on his forehead. His eyes, however, were unreadable. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts before speaking.

"What are you two discussing right now, I wonder?" he asked finally.

Almost hit by another bout of wordless mouth-flapping, Alfred was beaten to the punch by Russia, who cut in smoothly, "Nothing of importance to you, Mr. England, so there is no need to concern yourself."

If possible, England's eyebrows shot up even more. "Oh," he said, sounding very unconvinced. "Is that so? Well, sorry there, Russia, but I'm asking Alfred here, you see, and so—"

"Really, it's nothing important, Arthur."

"_Alfred,_" England started to say, sounding taken aback.

Alfred glanced at his watch and yelped aloud. "_Holy shit_, we should have started already! Is everyone here? Is that France who just came in? I can't tell – it kind of vaguely sort of looks like his fly is down though, someone tell him please – seats, seats – _Hey, good morning, guys,_" he called to all the occupants of the room as they rushed to join the table, and with a resigned sigh he fished the ancient backup glasses he was carrying from his breast pocket and put them on his face. "Welcome to day three in D.C.; looks like everyone made it here okay with the delay and all, sorry about that by the way, unforeseen circumstances and stuff like that, nothing major so don't worry about it! Alrighty, let's start off with talking about Greece's financial situation right now, he's in a tough spot – um, someone wake him up, please? Italy, grab that pen and poke him? No, not you, Romano, I mean your brother – _you_ might kill him by accident, Tomato Boy, you're crazy, haha – _no, I was kidding, I was kidding, seriously – _Spain, heeelp!"

Rather preoccupied with diving out of his seat and barrel rolling across the carpeted floor to avoid a deadly flying pen onslaught via South Italy, Alfred failed to notice Russia, who was not paying any attention to Alfred being in serious danger of losing his life at all and was instead gazing at his newly cleaned scarf and running his fingers over and over it again, nor did he catch the highly troubled gaze that was being fixed upon both of them by a brooding England.

* * *

"—_away battling large dinosaurs in New York City or rescuing hot girls from helicopters right now, so leave a message after the beep! If you happen to be a hot girl who needs to be saved from a helicopter, or someone being assaulted by a large dinosaur in New York City, press the pound sign for—uh hey, does that noise mean the tape's running out, I think I just hea—"_

The recorded message was cut off with a digital _beep,_ and Arthur Kirkland stared at his phone. During the entirety of America's rather stupid-sounding and overly long answering machine response he had been unable to think of what he would say when it ended, and now it _had_ ended, and he still hadn't a clue.

Arthur switched the leg he was crossing from the right one to the left, straightening his back against the uncomfortable and very shiny plastic airport seat. A young lad of about six went charging down the row of seats holding a model Boeing airliner bought from one of the duty-free shops aloft, roaring like a madman, and knocked Arthur's carry-on suitcase sideways to the ground. The boy's harassed-looking mother came hurrying along behind him, pausing to upright Arthur's fallen suitcase and apologizing profusely to everyone else waiting in the boarding area (many of whom were shooting the little tyke murderous glares over the top of their newspapers) before scuttling after her son. Oh, the woes of economy class traveling…but it would be too _extravagant_ to borrow from the national coffers for first class when the Prime Minister or the royal family wasn't even involved, especially with times as they were…

America's answering machine, apparently tired of waiting for him to say something, clicked faintly before redirecting his cell phone to a single dull tone; reportedly, the call session had been terminated. Arthur let the phone fall to his lap and stared out of the massive airport windows at a plane that was just pulling up to the building.

He had a lot to think about.

Last night…

Last night he had invited America to go drinking with him, because Arthur had wanted to find some evidence – _any_ evidence – that what he feared was not true. But he had been a fool, he had drank too much, succumbing to the alcohol and thus did not make much headway with his extremely cunning and brilliant plan.

Still, America had been rather… _forthcoming_…with Russia, hadn't he? Despite all of his past whinging and carrying on about how much he disliked him. He certainly had not seemed all that troubled by the fact that Russia had followed them to the bar of their choosing. During those first few drinks, America seemed to have been keeping a close eye on the Russian as well. And the rapidity with which America waved off all of Arthur's questions, as if he had something to hide…

Then Arthur had been lost to the world for some time before waking up with an inhumanly busty woman with skin the color of Indian curry practically sprawled over him bearing the signs of having been recently ill, and there had been a _dreadful _throbbing in the back of his brain, and that prat America _had not been anywhere in the vicinity, _at _all_. And the same had held true for Russia.

Where had they gone?

Arthur had been in no fit state to go adventuring around the capital questing for them (honestly, the only reason he could get by _now_ was credited to the seventeen overdoses of painkilling medication he had downed a few hours prior), and had somehow made his way back to the hotel to collapse exhaustedly into bed, dreading the early meeting the next day and plotting out the many ways he was going to beat America about the head for leaving him there. But then somewhere around seven in the morning some official had called his hotel room informing him that the meeting had been pushed back by two hours due to "certain events" and then at the meeting America had been remarkably _shifty_ and then he and Russia were going on about how they made a "good team", not to mention they were exchanging scarves or glasses or balderdash or _something_ for some reason…and Russia had invited America to his country to pick up some "papers", which he had mentioned in an aside to gaining back America's glasses, apparently…

Quite curious, indeed.

And, with a few phone calls to certain people, Arthur had discovered that the United States government had been in quite a tizzy that morning, and had given clearance for a _Russian military jet _to land within the capital's borders.

It…it couldn't really…

Arthur had dialed America's home number once again without even realizing it. As he held the phone to his ear, listening to that absurd answering machine message once more, he thought dully to himself that he still did not know what to say.

"—_City, press the pound sign for—uh hey, does that noise mean the tape's running out, I think I just hea—"_

The beep sounded, a short and high-pitched note, and Arthur thought perhaps he'd best just hang up, he would not be able to think of anything anyway, because he still did not know _what_ to think…

"…Alfred," he said, finally, softly, "…Please. I don't want to be led to believe…just… Please.

"…It's dangerous."

His thumb found the button and he ended the call.

A sudden familiar voice made him jump. "C'est dangereux, Arthur? Pourquoi? What could be provoking such frightening warnings?"

France had settled into the seat next to him, and Arthur shot him a tired glare. "What are you doing here?"

"We share a flight, ma fleur, isn't it wonderful? But back to the matter at hand – I don't suppose you have just been sending some cautionary words sailing in the direction of young Alfred, now?"

Arthur exhaled and turned to look at France full in the face. Despite the man's ornate tone and airs, his face was serious. "…You noticed?"

"Of course. C'etait pas possible, je pense, that there was any individual who was _not_ sneaking at least a bit of a peek over at our dear garçon Amerique's little chat with that man, not after he came dancing dans the room without that ridiculous scarf of his," France said, examining his nails.

"…What do you make of it?"

France fanned his fingers out and made a sweeping motion away from his body, as if ridding himself of some invisible cloud of dust. "Moi? What do I make of it – I make of it that it is not any of my business. I make of it that mon mignon Alfred has lived through enough anniversaires that he knows his boundaries, and besides, this is _Alfred_, now. What, dear Arthur, do _you_ make of it?"

The plane had docked and was now being relieved of its passengers. Watching the sleepy-looking travelers file by, Arthur relied, "I – I agree. It's not our business. Alfred wouldn't— Alfred…Alfred wouldn't."

"But you don't believe that at all, do you, cher?" France said quietly.

Arthur said nothing.

"Whatever tu voudrais, Arthur. Do whatever you feel you must. I have already cautioned the boy, and you may feel free to consult with me, but that is all the part I will take here. The rest is yours."

Arthur stared at the cell phone he was holding, as if wondering if it was really there.

"…This is nonsense. Of course…of course it's nothing like that. But – but maybe – for Alfred's sake, mind – for his sake…"

France shook his head, as if to say, _Whatever you like,_ and Arthur, feeling strengthened, raised his phone.

"Perhaps…just a call or two to some of the other countries. Just – just to gauge their opinions. So we can…I mean, this is all for Alfred's sake, of course. For his protection. We don't want him to be…mind you, it's for the best. For – for _his_ best, I mean. His best."

"C'est your own decision, Arthur," said France, sounding perfectly indifferent to whatever may be, but his face as he turned away to watch a mother snatch a model plane away from her misbehaving son and lecture him over his growing wails did not look as if he were very comfortable with the situation at all.


End file.
